Cookson Hills Christian School

Each year, our garden gives 14 to 24 at-risk secondary students a chance to develop, grow, and market organic crops. It also lets them experience what it is like to raise a garden for home produce.

Our goals are to maintain these opportunities and expand the program to serve our elementary students, as well. Ideally, we could make the program available to 50 students. In addition, we would like to teach sustainability and environmental consciousness through composting.

A grant from the Whole Kids Foundation is needed to meet these goals. Our tiller broke last summer, which can make gardening inefficient and frustrating in our rocky soil. Also, we do not have adequate equipment to teach composting.

Our donors have generously provided $300 annually for seed, tools, fuel, soil tests, and lime. But we do not have funds to replace our tiller and buy a composter. If the Whole Kids Foundation were to award us a grant, we could continue our garden program and expand it as planned.