George Washington High School

George Washington High School will be the 5th high school at Denver Public Schools to initiate a Garden of Youth. The DPS Garden of Youth(GOY) program enables high school students with disabilities to experience themselves as active, vital participants in their community by bringing healthy, fresh food to local residents and businesses while simultaneously learning about sound nutrition and healthy lifestyles. The GOY is also designed to be an engaging and relevant work-training program that incorporates job readiness and entrepreneurial skill development to prepare students to obtain and maintain future employment.
Students enrolled in the project will be engaged in planting, cultivating and harvesting fresh vegetables and herbs. Seedlings will be cultivated in special education classrooms by students with mild to more significant disabilities. Plants will be transferred to garden plots located across the district in the late spring/early summer and tended by students selected to continue with the program during the summer.
Using produce from the garden, students will participate in cooking classes facilitated by a local chef who will offer instruction that relates to food preparation techniques, as well as nutrition. Participants in the GOY will also sell harvested produce at Local Farmers Markets. To develop the skills necessary to successfully market and sell harvested food, training and coaching the areas of job readiness, marketing and customer service will be provided by DPS staff as part of the daily operations of the Garden of Youth. Many if not all of these skills will be transferable to any job a student chooses to pursue after their participation in the project is complete.
All participants will earn a high school credit according to the number of work hours completed. Those who wish to continue working during the summer will earn both school credit and an hourly wage.