Today—March 20—is an important date for ScottsMiracle-Gro. It’s the first day of spring, and symbolically, it marks the start of the gardening season. This is the time when gardeners everywhere start making plans and preparing for the upcoming growing season.
To celebrate and usher in the spring season, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation is announcing our 2019 Gro More Good Grassroots Grantees with KidsGardening. These 175 school and community organizations from across the U.S. are working with children to increase their connections to gardening and meaningful outdoor experiences. This is part of our Gro More Good commitment to connect 10 million children to the powerful, life-enhancing benefits of gardens and greenspaces over the next five years.
Here are a few highlights from this year’s list of grantees.
- Northland Family Help Center’s Youth Shelter Garden in Flagstaff, Arizona: Garden serves homeless youth ages 4–17 who reside at the shelter, allowing them to pick and snack on fresh fruits and vegetables while also benefiting from the therapeutic nature of gardening. Funds will be used to expand the garden program and purchase more hardy perennial and self-renewing annual plants.
- Via Rehabilitation Services, Inc. in Santa Clara, California: Via provides weekend respite programs and longer summer camps to children and teens with developmental, physical and intellectual disabilities. Their Growing My Plate program combines horticultural lessons with independent living and culinary skills in their year-round accessible garden and greenhouse.
- Our Daily Bread of TN, Inc. in Knoxville, Tennessee: Serving low-income families with children enrolled in child care facilities, Our Daily Bread’s Taking Root Tennessee initiative aims to influence positive food choices in children by bringing gardening opportunities to childcare settings. They supply childcare providers with raised garden beds, seeds and training materials to create successful garden programs.
- Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary in Dallas, Texas: An urban public school, Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary will expand their existing native plants and pollinator garden with a new educational vegetable garden inside the school premises. The garden will provide practical experiences for students in biology, ecology, mathematics, health, history and language arts. Harvested produce will be sent home with students, all of whom qualify for free school meals.
As part of Gro More Good, The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation is partnering with leading not-for-profit organizations, such as KidsGardening, to help overcome some of the pressing challenges facing today’s youth—including childhood obesity, poor nutrition and nature deficit ––by improving children’s access to fresh food and increasing their time spent outdoors.
For a full list of the 2019 Gro More Good Grassroots Grantees, visit https://kidsgardening.org/2019-gromore-grassroots-grant/. For more information on The Scotts Miracle-Gro Foundation’s Gro More Good initiative, visit www.GroMoreGood.org.
