Cesar Chavez Elementary School

Our goal is to establish a vibrant, productive garden on the grounds of the brand-new Chavez Elementary School. The garden will produce fresh, healthy food for our students and their families while allowing us to deliver our comprehensive Learning Gardens curriculum during our afterschool program called Enrichment Academy. The curriculum expands on classroom lessons about nutrition and healthy lifestyle choices while fostering a love of healthy foods, teaching sustainable and self-sufficient practices, and allowing children to grow, harvest, prepare, and eat their own fruits and vegetables.

Chavez is one of five school gardens in early planning or construction phase, after we successfully launched eight school gardens through our district last fall. The gardens produced a total of 3,000 pounds of healthy food, our Garden Coordinators taught gardening to 460 students in our before- and after-school programs, and tasting tables introduced 5900 students to new, healthy foods.

This program is supported by SALEM SCHOOLS FOUNDATION.