Creating and Funding a School Garden Program

There are a variety of opportunities available for schools to create public/private funding packages to support their school garden programs. These include, but are not limited to: grants, line items in school budgets, and fundraising events and activities. These activities can be co-hosted by one or more community partners, including local medical organizations, restaurants, Rotary clubs, or other businesses, benefactors, and parent-teacher organizations. Many community groups like to know the names of other agencies that are supporting the school garden efforts so as to become part of a larger package. The key words in asking for school garden support are time, talent, and treasury. Everyone has something to give. It is our responsibility to show each interested individual or organization how the three “t’s” can benefit supporters and garden programs alike.

Fundraisers
O‘ahu’s Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation lists ideas for creative fundraisers on its Web site under “Green Fundraising”. Some of the ideas shared include healthy food sales on campus such as granola bars and green smoothies, a student farmers’ market, walk-a-thons or other athletic events, sales of local farm foods, student-constructed seed packets and plants, and even locally grown Christmas trees. Some schools have created and sold calendars with school garden photos or collections of student poetry and drawings on garden themes. Student garden clubs and school garden committees can generate a variety of approaches to fundraising once the garden needs are determined.

Fundraising Events
Fundraising events can be organized to generate a larger sum of income when a significant goal has been determined, such as the purchase of a greenhouse or chipper, funds for a school fieldtrip or local farm day, or funds for a school garden coordinator. Examples of successful fundraising events are harvest days in the fall and spring, school fairs with games for children, nutritious snack food demonstrations, student entertainment including music and skits, or sale of plants, recipes, food products, and artwork connected to the garden. National Farm to School month in October could also be celebrated with a fundraiser for school gardens.

How to Leverage Community Support for School Garden Programs
Every community is a viable source of revenue, volunteers, and solicitation. You are all obviously working to make your community successful together. Know that funding can be found. There are numerous ways to seek funding and assistance with fundraisers from church groups, boys and girls clubs, restaurants, Rotary clubs, gardening groups, hardware stores, hotels, county and state agencies, medical centers, civic organizations and more. Let them work for you to help raise money and in turn free up time for your garden project. Your school garden committee should choose one or two individuals to run a master calendar for garden work and community workdays in the garden as well as for funding events. Community groups are often looking for service projects and schools can take advantage of these opportunities by publishing newsletters and posts on their school Web sites and by sharing information and requests with the island school garden coordinators. Many newspapers and radio stations offer free announcements and listings of community events. More information on how to pool community resources is available from the Hawai‘i Island School Garden Network (HISGN) and the Maui School Garden Network. Go to the Funding and Partnerships page of the HISGN Web site and scroll down to “Developing Community Partnerships: Ideas from the Maui School Garden Network.”

Funding a School Garden Coordinator
Although funding a school garden coordinator is a big challenge, an even bigger challenge is deciding where the position will fit within the school. Most schools prefer someone with a science background, since the connections to gardening are most obvious for science. However, the position is really multidisciplinary and few schools have a department of this kind. Furthermore, institutions of higher education currently lack training programs for school garden coordinators. However, many administrators and faculty see the value in having a school garden coordinator in terms of enhanced learning, achievement, wellness, and student behavior (the research is indisputable) and are willing to give it a try. Approaches to funding a school garden position include:

(1) Utilizing funds from Parent-Teacher Team (PTT) positions - DOE principals can elect to spend PTT money in the area of their choice. This money comes from a per-student allocation of funds, making this option most viable for larger schools. Some principals allow their teachers to help make the decision as to how the money will be spent. PTT positions are part-time up to 17 hours/week.

(2) Applying for a grant that includes personnel funds or, at least, consultant funds, which can be used for a garden coordinator.

(3) Requesting a full-time teaching position that is half-time classroom educator and half-time school garden coordinator where the garden program could, for example, be the living lab for science instruction in biology, chemistry, earth science, or physics with time for the teacher, having a lighter student load, to also do outreach as the resource specialist (garden coordinator) to other science teachers in the school.

(4) Piecing together funds from the school Parent Teacher Association (PTA) and local organizational support such as an area restaurant, community association, philanthropic organization, or church to create a half-time position or even a full-time position. This model has been used successfully on the island of Maui.

(5) Consulting the island school garden coordinator for other ideas. As the garden's success grows, so does the school community support for a garden coordinator position. Don't be afraid to "think outside the box."

Grant Opportunities
The HFSSGH researches, updates, and reports online grant opportunities for teachers and students that will increase their access to farm-to-school, school garden, and nutritional information as well as contribute to the planning, implementation, and expansion of school garden programs. Annotated lists of nationally or locally based school garden grant opportunities are available on the following Web sites:
Maui School Garden Network
Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation School Programs
Kokua Hawai‘i Foundation Resources for Educators
Hawai‘i School Garden Network
Malama Kaua‘i
Hawai‘i Environmental Education Alliance

In addition, the Hawai‘i Community Foundation is an umbrella organization that funds capacity building for organizations and oversees the grants and scholarship programs for over 500 foundations in Hawai‘i. Go to The Hawai‘i Community Foundation Web site to register so that your school can take advantage of the broad array of opportunities.

How to Write a Successful Grant Proposal
Not everyone is familiar with the grant writing process and all our islands have grant writing workshops sponsored by a variety of community agencies and community colleges to assist in the process. Check out this document from the Maui School Garden Network that gives a short list of some of the key points to consider in developing successful grant proposals.