Valley Academy Charter School

We are Desert Hive Food Forests, a Non-profit organization operating in the far Southwestern corner of Utah! We are currently working on a school garden overhaul with Valley Academy Charter School a Kindergarten through 7th grade school serving about 350 students in a rural desert community. We believe strongly that schools provide the perfect platform for community centered agriculture and believe that outdoor garden classrooms that serve the children, the cafeteria, and the community, are a necessary addition to our current curriculum standards. Currently, the students are engaging in a new Composting program with Cafeteria waste, and an Orchard installation with supportive edible perrenials is in the works. Each grade will share in the simple care, maintenance, and harvest of 1 specific type of fruit tree during the school year. By the 7th grade, the student will have engaged in the care of 8 different varieties of fruit trees and their supporting perrenials such as berries, kitchen herbs, and annual vegetables. Produce grown aims to support the school cafeteria, and a nearby empty portable classroom has been offered as a garden food processing kitchen, should funding eventually allow the equipment necessary for that stage of development.

Outside of this school project, Desert Hive Food Forests aims to teach community members sustainable garden practices, provide fresh locally grown produce- (with an emphasis on reviving edible desert natives) to community members on an affordable sliding scale, and install sustainable food forests on publicly funded tax-payer land (such as schools) in order to encourage long term community resilience.