Growing Matters Garden Program (Fair Food Matters)

The Growing Matters Garden (a program of Fair Food Matters) provides garden-based, hands-on learning opportunities for local youth and the larger community. Our main focus is to support and coordinate activities at the Woodward Elementary School garden in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The Woodward School garden has areas for growing vegetables, herbs, strawberries, and flowers. During the school year classes enjoy the produce they have grown. Over the summer, a portion of the produce is sold at the Douglass Farmer's Market to help fund the program.

Over 300 elementary students are involved in learning activities in the garden each year! Students put their hands in the soil and better understand where their food comes from, how great it tastes right from the garden, and why growing organic is so important. We work closely with teachers to align lessons with state standards in science, math, and language arts.

We facilitate an after school club (Club Grub) that explores healthy eating, gardening, cooking, and nutrition through games, hands-on activities, and group discussions. We taste different foods and make/eat a healthy snack together every week!

Working in food justice and education, our staff explores anti-bias /anti-racism (ABAR) teaching techniques to "support all children's full development in our multiracial, multilingual, multicultural world and give them the tools to stand up to prejudice, stereotyping, bias, and eventually to institutional 'isms'." (1)

For more information about our program, please visit Fair Food Matters' website at www.fairfoodmatters.org

(1) Excerpt from "Anti-bias Education for Young Children and Ourselves" by Louise Derman-Sparks & Julie Olsen Edwards