Garden Classrooms

All of the youth Hale Kipa serves have suffered trauma in one form or another, mostly through abuse, neglect or both. These traumatized youth suffer in school, in social circles and have been involved in the juvenile justice system. Many of these youth have dropped out of school or are far behind their peers, have had little positive adult influences in their lives and their health and health behaviors are poor. Hale Kipa has just launched an educational program to help these youth catch up with their classwork -- or reengage -- while they are in our shelters.

 At Chad Varah Primary School all our teaching and learning is project-based and from February to June 2013 the topic in our Year 6 class is based on growing your own produce. Everything we are learning about is focused around this topic whether it has a maths focus to an art focus. We are aiming to grow our own fruit and vegetables to harvest in June as we are planning on entering a local school's challenge set by organisers of the Lincolnshire Show.

 Johnson Elementary School is a part of  the Charlottesville School District. City Schoolyard Garden, a non-profit organization. serves as an umbrella organization to create and manage edible schoolyards at all of the city's schools.  Presently in Charlottesville, City Schoolyard Garden oversees, maintains and provides garden-based curriculum for six elementary schools, Johnson, Greenbrier, Jackson-Via, Venable and Clark and one middle school, Buford.

VSDB provides an environment which fosters self-confident students who are contributing citizens and life-long learners and to be a resource of excellence for the communities of Virginia who serve students who are deaf/hard of hearing, blind/vision impaired and deafblind.  In 2012 the CROPS Project was founded.  CROPS stands for Cooperation, Respect, Opportunity, Perserverance, Skills and uses horticulture and gardening to reinforce academic learning, provide a fun recreational activity, and underscore the importance of making healthy food choices.