Sustaining the Chico Garden Program

Fundraising is a challenge. Gathering support from the community requires plenty of creativity and perseverance. Money is not the only resource for sustainability, however.

Getting Administrative Support

Getting a team together may not be as easy as pie, but is a crucial first step.  Mary Anne Pella-Donnelly’s experience is typical:

“I’ve done it (created a school garden) before, but only me. When I left, the garden went too.”   

This time, a couple of teachers independently expressed interest in an ornamental garden and Ms. Pella-Donnelly wanted a vegetable garden so they approached the Principal. At about the same time, she got a flyer from Slow Food. It turned into a fortuitous partnership.   Chico Jr.’s team is now made up of not only teachers, but Slow Food, parents, university and community members.

How instrumental is it having the Principal involved? 

It is critical having administrative support. It’s been especially helpful to have the Principal help with district level issues, such as maintenance and district office concerns about issues such as putting in automatic irrigation systems or changing the configuration of a landscape.

Support from Maintenance

Building a positive relationship with the grounds and maintenance staff can make or break a school garden program.  Not only are they crucial contacts in the set-up stage, but must be committed to the ongoing maintenance of the garden, even if parents and teachers volunteer to water and weed.  Enlisting their help and commitment is the best strategy a team can use for ensuring the sustainability of the garden.

Partners: Cultivate a Network 

• STUDENTS are your best partners!
• Community members
• Custodians and grounds staff
• Cafeteria Manager—she arranged tours for the students, taste tests and lessons on food safety.
• Parent volunteers
• Staff members occasionally
• Principal
• Regional support groups

Shasta Cascade Slow Food:  “You need a team. You can’t do it all yourself!”

The Slow Food organization has done so much to get the ball rolling and give us ideas. The benefits they have put together have been instrumental in getting this effort off the ground. I don’t know if it would be going as smoothly if it were not for them, so Kudos.  They have contributed not only fundraising but awareness and input from seeing other schools.

Initially, Noelle Ferdon made sure the Chico team had a really good plan with financial backing, so right off the bat, they had a lot of support going into the program.  This translates into more investment in the garden by parents and community, and has the ripple effect of helping with things like vandalism—vandalism will go down when more community members are involved.

Cultivating youngsters

Debra Abbott teaches the after school enrichment program at RosedaleElementary School in Chico and networks with the teachers at Chico Jr.  Her contribution is instilling a love of gardening in young children so that when they move on to the next school, they will want to continue to garden and choose it as an elective if possible.  They will really understand where food comes from and the whole cycle.  “When you see the excitement on the kids’ faces when they see that first little sprout come up, it’s magic.”   

Fundraising in Chico’s Community

• Chico’s 30-30 Club: The team discovered, much to their delight, that community members were enthusiastic about supporting a garden program at Chico Jr.  In Chico, the 30-30 Club are made up of 30+ Year olds who want to get involved in the community.  They got together to do fundraising in support of the garden.
• At Risk Schools:  Another group is giving money to at-risk schools. Ronnie told them about their program and they are considering what kind of support they might give.
• Slow Food: They received money from the Slow Food fundraiser ($1700).
• OXO: Slow Food also has a partnership with OXO—kitchen and garden tools. OXO donated several boxes of hand tools, several hundreds of dollars worth, to Slow Food, who dispensed them out to Chico Jr. as an in-kind donation.

Message?

There are any number of ways the community can support a school garden program, ranging from time and expertise, to in-kind donations of plants, soil, building materials, tools, etc.  Be creative in looking and asking for support!