Program Affiliates

GrowingGreat has created meaningful collaborations with the following organizations to spread healthy eating education throughout the country:

 

AINA IS:  In 2006, via a grant from the Kokua Hawaii Foundation, we served as consultants and curriculum experts for a pilot project, AINA in Schools (Actively Integrate Nutrition and Agriculture), for the State of Hawaii Public Schools. Twelve elementary schools have implemented classroom nutrition and school garden programs, with the goal of expanding ultimately to all 250 schools in Hawaii. The Johnson Ohana Foundation continues to graciously support GrowingGreat through a multi-year capacity building grant.

Ojai Food For Thought: In 2004, we replicated our school garden program for the Ojai Unified School District’s five elementary schools, and we continue to offer consultation on their garden program.

Milagro Foundation: We joined forces with Carlos Santana’s Milagro Foundation, ONEXONE, the W.K.Kellogg Foundation, and the Sausalito Marin City School District to create GrowingGreat Marin City and bring nutrition education and access to healthy foods to Marin City’s children, families and community.  Our founder, Marika Bergsund lives in Northern California and is overseeing this project which serves three schools in Marin City.  She is also expanding our nutrition curriculum to serve grades K-2 and 6-8.

LA’s Best Farmers’ Market Recovery Project: To enhance our impact on the daily eating behaviors of these low-income families in LA’s inner city, we partnered with Anne Burmeister and LA’s BEST, the after-school enrichment program, to provide direct access to fresh fruits and vegetables through the Farmers’ Market Produce Project.  The Project collects fresh fruits and vegetables donated by farmers at local farmers’ markets. It then delivers the produce directly to the LA’s BEST after-school program where LA’s BEST families select the fresh produce to take home when they pick up their children. Through our partnership with LA’s BEST and its BEST Fit Program we couple these produce deliveries with take-home nutrition and food preparation education. Currently, the Project delivers approximately six hundred pounds of fresh produce to nearly 100 LA’s BEST families on a weekly basis.  We recently expanded the delivery of GrowingGreat’s programs to two LAUSD schools (Westminster Elementary and Braddock Ave Elementary) by training LA’s Best staff to deliver garden and nutrition curriculum in conjunction with the weekly produce deliveries.

Teaching Garden: We partnered with environmental activist, Kelly Meyer, to help launch the first Teaching Garden at Kelso Elementary School in Inglewood, CA.  The Teaching Garden brings veterans, volunteers, celebrities and schools together to install a garden in low-income schools and get students excited about eating healthy and staying fit.  GrowingGreat supplied the garden/nutrition curriculum and training to all Teaching Garden schools. In 2010, we also help launch Teaching Gardens at Nevin Elementary School and Will Rogers Elementary School.

Add Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *