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Adopt a School Garden Program
Building Partnerships for Success

Principal Susan Hodge of Emerson Elementary in Berkeley, California, was very excited when she heard that the Organic Valley Family of Farms planned to adopt their school garden. “My community will be so thrilled!” The parents and teachers have been working hard to grow a garden program to teach healthy eating habits by fostering a relationship between the students and the foods they eat, but the school was hampered by limited gardening space. Through the Adopt a School Garden program, they will receive the funds to build raised beds around their playground, enabling them to expand their production and increase the impact of their program.

Hodge's enthusiasm was echoed by the Berkeley Unified School District's Director of Nutrition Services Ann Cooper, "I’m going to begin looking into the irrigation and other issues right away! This is an important step for Emerson. Our plans to integrate nutrition into the school day are dependent on sufficient gardens where children can receive hands-on experiences to learn about the foods they eat and the environment around them. Until I heard about the possibility of this funding I wasn’t sure how we could make it work for this school.”

The Adopt a School Garden Program was launched by the National Gardening Association in Fall 2005 to create a bridge between programs that lack resources to implement school or community gardening programs and people who have the ability to help. NGA seeks corporate and private donors to finance projects; NGA education staff empower project leaders to establish a local network of sustainable support, provide guidance, and critical educational services and resources.

Organic Valley is one of the first corporate donors to contribute to the Adopt a School Garden program. It is America’s largest independent cooperative of organic farmers and is one of the nation’s leading organic brands. Organized in 1988 by seven farmers determined to provide a hopeful solution to the seeming demise of the family farm, the thriving Cooperative now represents 752 farmers in 23 states. Focused on its founding mission of keeping small and mid-sized farmers farming, Organic Valley produces 200 organic foods, including organic milk, soy, cheese, butter, spreads, creams, eggs, produce, juice, and meats, which are sold in supermarkets, natural foods stores, and food cooperatives nationwide.

“Organic Valley is proud to sponsor the Adopt a School Garden Program, continuing the Coop’s long standing commitment to health and nutrition initiatives for children, families, and communities. We are pleased to have these resources directed toward urban communities, where the hands-on education provided through school gardens gives children contact and a personal experience with the earth and growing food that they wouldn't get to experience otherwise,” says Sara Tedeschi, Organic Valley’s Community Nutrition Educator. “Gardening gives children the opportunity to understand that what is good for the earth is in turn good for them and for their communities, too.”

Educational resources from Organic Valley include an online Kids Club called Ovie's Underground, designed to introduce youth to basic principles of organic gardening. The site includes interactive games, stories from kids growing up on farms, recipes, and more.

With generous donors like Organic Valley, the Adopt a School Garden program will be able to help youth gardens across the country prosper. “The partnership among NGA’s Adopt a School Garden program, Organic Valley, and Emerson Elementary School is what this whole program is about — providing funding to schools so that they can develop fruitful and educational school gardens,” says Keri Evjy, Education Coordinator of the Adopt a School Garden program. Learn how to register your school garden for adoption.