Our project seeks to provide agricultural education and increased nutrition to elementary students and their families across four school districts through agricultural lessons in school gardens,…

Growing Gardens, a Portland, Oregon-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit, received a $240,000 Project Grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) under the Food and Agriculture Service Learning Program (CFDA 10.522) on September 15, 2025. The two-year project, concluding September 14, 2027, will deliver comprehensive agricultural education and nutrition programming to elementary students and families across four school districts. Core products and services include hands-on agricultural lessons conducted in school gardens, cafeteria taste tests featuring produce from school gardens, take-home cooking kits sourced from local farm partnerships, educational farm field trips, guest speaker presentations from local agricultural producers, and donation of harvested produce to school food pantries.

In addition to direct programming, the project will expand capacity and knowledge-sharing within the farm-to-school sector through two complementary offerings: technical assistance consultations to promote school garden and farm-to-school programming locally, and development of an online School Garden Coordinator Certificate Training (SGCCT) program with national reach. These products collectively address the Food and Agriculture Service Learning Program's objectives of increasing capacity for food, garden, and nutrition education in schools while strengthening connections between farms and schools and fostering food system literacy among K-12 students and their families.

Our project seeks to provide agricultural education and increased nutrition to elementary students and their families across four school districts through agricultural lessons in school gardens, cafeteria taste tests of school garden produce, take-home cooking kits sourced with produce from partnerships with local farms, agricultural learning from field trips to local farms and guest speakers from local farms, and donation of harvested produce from school gardens to school food pantries. In addition, this project will promote school garden and farm to school programming locally and nationally through providing technical assistance consultations locally and an online school garden coordinator certificate training (SGCCT) with a national reach.