High School

Academy @ Shawnee

Our school, grades 6-12, is located in a USDA certified food desert in a blighted neighborhood. There is only one grocery store, and it's miles away from a majority of our families. Our school population is high-poverty, made up of almost 90% free and reduced lunch qualifiers. So, besides school lunches, many of our students and their families do not have the opportunity to eat much fresh food and produce, and even if they can get it from the store, it is usually more expensive than the fast food and processed food alternatives.

Hillel Day School

The garden’s goal is to teach students the importance of growing their own food and eating locally grown food for the purposes of conservation, elimination of poverty and energy efficiency. The open-source design we implement will be instructional, to share the idea that even in constrained settings, one can build a functioning four-season greenhouse and give prosperity away. Nothing matters more to a kid than food, and food is the connective tissue between our daily life and the future of innovation, such as feeding the next generation of astronauts on a space station.

The Independent School

Our goals for this garden are to donate 50% of the produce to local food banks and use 50% of it in our school cafeteria and classrooms.

The 50% used in our cafeteria will help us include hands on nutrition education and experience with nourishing food to teach students the purpose and value of healthy food, to question their food trends and to ultimately gain ownership of their food choices.

Gerard Elementary School

This project is a unique collaboration between Gerard Elementary School and Hill College (a 2-year college). Biology students from Hill will assist the elementary students in installing and maintaining raised bed gardens on the Gerard campus, while also teaching them how to use available recycled items such as pallets, cardboard, newspaper, and trash cans in order to create gardens, compost bins, and rain barrels. Hill students will also create guidance books for each plant, teaching organic methods for weed and pest control, planting, and fertilizing.

Northeast High

This garden is a project that will involve students in a class called E.P.I.C.S., which stands for Engineering Projects in Community Service. This is a program that combines Service Learning with Engineering and Civic Engagement. A team of students will work with a community garden (Fruitful Field)'s education coordinator, and a University of Florida Extension Service Farms to School Coordinator, and an after school club to design, plant, and care for the garden. We will use the garden as a teaching tool as well as a source of food.

Academic Leadership Community

With the Whole Kids Foundation Grant we will be able to provide the Academic Leadership Community with our Garden Ranger Program in which students will take a step out of their classrooms and learn about the scientific, nutritional, and environmental impact of gardening in their own garden we help them build. We will also be able to assist them in yielding more glorious harvests for students to incorporate into their daily meals. The Academic Leadership Community emphasizes leadership, community, and intellectual curiosity among its students.

Bronx Design and Construction Academy

The WITS Tower Garden will be the primary feature of the WITS Green for Kids program, with the goal of increasing environmental awareness and develop sustainable practices in public schools. Because the Tower Gardens are mobile, students can connect to nature anywhere in their school, year-round. The Tower Gardens will be featured in the WITS Green Labs, hands-on educational classes on sustainability topics; used to support the WITS Culinary Labs; and also made available to teachers for use in their curricula.

Great River School

We currently have a garden that we want to expand to include more fruit and vegetables. We want to add a natural berry "fence" to give protection from the street. This would include blueberries and raspberries. We would also add raised garden beds for a strawberry patch. We would plan three columnar apple trees along the east side of the garden as a cover from the back/walking path. We plan to add several more raised garden beds that would house lettuce, spinach and kale. There would also be a root vegetable area with beets, carrots, potatoes and turnips.

Boston Green Academy

Our goal is to integrate garden education throughout the curriculum at Boston Green Academy. With this grant, we will have the opportunity to involve many different classes in the design, building, and maintenance of different types of garden technology, helping to connect students with real food and providing them the hands-on skills they will need to succeed in the green industry. We will also be able to increase our garden’s capacity, allowing us to hold larger garden events that reach out to our community food pantries, farmers markets and surrounding schools.

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