Growing Gardens

Programs: Youth grow our youth grow program highlights include:nine schools with thriving school gardens, most of which are at high-poverty schools where 100% of the students qualify for free and reduced lunch. A total of 3,794 kindergarten through eighth grade students participated in 33,481 garden-based learning hours during the school day. 394 elementary aged students participated in after-school and summer youth grow garden clubs and camps for a total of 5,414 learning hours dedicated to hands-on food gardening activities. 2,198 children and 2,114 adults participated in special on-time events learning about healthy cooking, snacking and eating and food gardening. Over 100 volunteers assisted with after-school youth grow clubs, garden camps and garden workparties, contributing over 1000 total person-hours. An estimated 212 pounds of school grown food was harvested and provided to cafeterias, student garden clubs and school-based food pantries. Professional learning communities and professional development133 classroom teachers collaborated with our garden educators to take their students out to the garden. 8 teachers participated in our garden based professional learning community, bringing integrated garden education to 272 students. 100% of participating teachers reported an increase in their level of garden based education with students in comparison to the previous school year. 76. 5% of teachers "observed garden-based learning enahancing students' academic growth in core subjects"100% agreed that "garden-based learning experiences connected to the grade-level curriculum"30 people graduated from our school garden coordinator certificate training in 2016, receiving 35 hours of training.

home gardens the home gardens program has supported over 1,250 home and community gardeners since 1996. We provide a three-year support system including seeds, plant starts, compost bins, newsletters, workshops, and one-on-one garden mentors. In 2016 our home gardens program: welcomed 71 new families into our three-year program (304 individuals, 161 children) and continued supporting 97 families (362 individuals, 172 children) in their second and third years of the program we increased our support for latino families, serving a total of 74 families and hosting eight gardening and cooking workshops in spanish at home forwards stephens creek crossing apartments we supported 30 families in growing their food, hosted two five-class series on growing vegetables and cooking with vegetables and provided employment for two teens through our leadership program hosted 24 workshops on a range of topics including: beginning gardening, water conservation and soil health, composting, food preservation, winter gardening and more distributed 3,500 plant starts and over 4,000 seed packets over 300 volunteers contributed nearly 1,500 hours to build gardens, mentor beginning gardeners, grow plant starts, teach classes and more.

our lettuce grow program provides the following classes for inmates: oregon food banks seed to supper class oregon state university extension services-sustainable gardening class lettuce grows greenhouse management classalong with offering classes, our volunteers work side by side with the inmates in the correction institution's gardens, providing hands on practical gardening instruction and friendship to incarcerated individuals. In youth facilities, as well as teaching classes, we build garden boxes which give the youth offenders the opportunity to have the full gardening experience, which will enhance their appreciation of gardening and the natural world. Lettuce grow volunteers work in 13 adult correctional facilities and 4 youth facilities around the state. In 2016, lettuce grow worked with the oregon department of correction to produce 236,000 pounds of food for prison kitchens , a benefit to taxpayers and the health of inmates. An additional 13,000 pounds went to foodbanks and community organizations across the state. While the inmate recidivism rate in the united states is over 60% and in the state of oregon it is 30%. Inmates who have been through our gardening program have a 5% recidivism rate.