Our SCHOOL GARDEN PROCESS

If so, a Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids’ (HFHK) garden may be just the thing for your school. We help you every step of the way, from designing and building the garden to providing our curriculum and training teachers to use it!

How do I get my school involved?

It’s simple! Contact us. Generally, we are contacted by a parent, teacher, school nurse, librarian, or other staff who wants to serve as our liaison with the school. We meet with them, interested teachers and the school principal to outline how we can work together, and decide whether the partnership will be a good fit. The school’s principal must be supportive of the project for us to proceed, and for the project to be successful.

Our Education Cultivation (EC) Program engages every child in the school in hands-on gardening activities each spring and fall, and the program consists of three phases: Planning, Implementation, and Continuation. Planning can take up to a year. Implementation is usually two growing seasons, as described below. During that time, responsibility for running the program is progressively transferred from HFHK to the school, and then the school enters the Continuation phase. HFHK provides assistance at different levels during all three phases.

PLANNING PHASE

We help our partners raise the funds necessary for their garden program and for recruiting volunteers to build the garden.

HFHK partners with schools to provide their expertise and the following services:

• Recommend where to apply for grants and provide a budget and examples of successful grant applications.

• Facilitate planning meetings and provide guidance for selecting the school’s Garden Coordinator and establishing the Garden Steering Committee (GSC).

• Evaluate and recommend the best garden site at the school.

• Order the necessary supplies and oversee the garden build.

IMPLEMENTATION PHASE

FIRST GROWING SEASON

HFHK works with school staff to schedule garden lessons and activities, and models all lessons by teaching the appropriate HFHK lesson to every class and teacher in the school, so that teachers who are not familiar with gardening can learn how to manage their class in the garden.

SECOND GROWING SEASON

An HFHK staff member meets with each grade level team in the school to prepare teachers for taking over the responsibility of teaching the HFHK lessons and taking their students to the garden. During the meeting, we explain how to use the HFHK Teachers’ Manual and other HFHK resources, and review teacher responsibilities. At this stage, teachers take over the responsibility of teaching the lessons, and the Garden Coordinator takes over the scheduling responsibilities.

CONTINUATION PHASE

After the implementation period is completed, an HFHK staff member continues to meet with the school’s Garden Coordinator before each growing season. HFHK also provides each school with:

• A garden map tailored to the school’s needs,

• A customized garden planting kit for each teacher whose class will be planting the garden,

• Updated lessons and incidental supplies,

• At least one site visit per year, and

• Gardening advice/technical assistance.

Continuation of these services is dependent on the availability of HFHK internal funding.

Are you ready to transform your school

into a Healthy Foods for Healthy Kids school?

Now that you’ve read how our School Garden Program works, check out Our School Partners page to see all the other schools that have joined our mission! If you’d like to talk about adding your school to our list, please use the form below to tell us a little bit about your goals and we will get back to you within 5 business days.