Orgs operating regionally or locally as SGSO

[Erin Maidlow]

Hi all,

Are any of you operating strictly as a school garden support org? The backstory: We have been providing direct education ever since inception, but as I'm sure most of you know, that's becoming more and more challenging. With funding cuts to education and more demands on classroom teachers, we are finding it hard to even reach classes anymore and not worthwhile to only reach 2-3 classes out of 15 at a school. We've tried several different models and will be doing once per month classes with each school this year, but that doesn't seem impactful. 

We have backed away from a few schools who didn't have enough staff who could allow us into classrooms to provide our programming, and some schools opted out on their own after receiving our application this year due to acknowledging that they just don't have time for it. However, that was somewhat intentional to see if they really valued their garden and could continue it on their own or begin developing a School Garden Committee on their own, which we require of all of our schools. Like clockwork, the staff started calling and emailing us to see what they can do to bring back programming. 

Long story short, we are seeing value in training teachers and staff to incorporate the school gardens on their own, given the training and tools to do so. We are creating physical toolkits and trainings for schools to use, and will provide the trainings quarterly during the school year to all staff. We can assist with volunteer days in the garden, resources for seeds, soil, compost, and all the things needed, but can no longer purchase all of this and do literally 100% of the school garden work with no return from schools. 

I'm curious how many of you operate this way, if any, and if so, what has been the process?