Growing for Good Program
By Petra Bryan, Communications, Gateway School
Every year, for the past 29 years, students in our Life Lab classroom have planted extra crops dedicated to those in need. They plant, tend, harvest, and deliver the produce. This year we delivered over 150 pounds of produce to the Grey Bears. In the past years we delivered our dedicated extra crops to Second Harvest Food Bank, the Familia Center, and River Street Shelter Kitchen.
The Growing for Good program was developed to help students understand access to food and what and how the supply chain works. Every fall as part of Gateway School’s Social Justice curriculum Kindergartners and 5th graders discuss what they are thankful for and learn about those who are less fortunate.
Gateway School’s Life Lab Garden supports a number of school events each year so in order to provide produce for the larger community, students plant extra crops. They plant, tend, harvest, and deliver the produce. This year, due to the shelter in place order, students were not able to harvest or deliver but that did not prevent Gateway from donating their garden’s bounty.
With the help of Gateway’s Life Lab farm managers, Dave Gardner and Tricia Sven, Life Lab instructor Caprice Potter harvested and delivered more than 150 lbs of produce to the Grey Bears in Santa Cruz on April 1.
Gateway’s Kindergarten through Middle School students develop a strong sense of personal responsibility for the natural world and others in their community through the school’s rich Environmental Science curriculum which, like all instruction, is integrated with Gateway’s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) practice.
Taking what they learn in the classroom into the community lets students discover and experience the difference that they can make.
Find out more about Gateway School and its award-winning Life Lab Garden at www.gatewaysc.org.
