San Diego Jewish Academy

At San Diego Jewish Academy our mission is to challenge minds, inspire purpose and explore possibilities. Levana's Garden is a 1/4 acre site that includes native plants, the seven species of trees from the Old Testament, 11 raised vegetable beds, 1 large in ground bed and a multitude of orchard trees. We also recently have added a flock of 4 hens to the garden. We have a school cafeteria that makes the majority of it's lunches from scratch, and is able to use the fresh ingredients from our garden. In return, we get a robust composting program; with all of the pre-consumer food waste generated in the kitchen going either to our 3 bin thermophilic compost system, our large worm bin or to our flock of chickens. Our garden's mission is to educate children about where food comes from, the importance of organic food, sustainable and regenerative practices and love and respect of the outdoors. Our values are firmly rooted in many of the permaculture principles including long and thoughtful observation, obtaining a yield and sharing the abundance as well as the Jewish value of Tikkun Olam; acts of kindness to repair the world. We also strongly feel that children benefit greatly from spending time outside engaging with tangible materials that they can smell, taste, feel and touch, that enable them to learn broad concepts and ideas spanning from math and science to arts and poetry.