Autumn Update

Good Afternoon New London County School Garden Coordinators and Volunteers:

Marcia Benvenuti share school garden tips

Thank you - Thank you!

Many of you are thinking about preparing your school garden for the winter months, but aren't we all still so amazed at how much we grew this past season? Amazing!  We had a great meeting of the School Garden Network on September 17, at Jennings School.  Thanks to May Reitz and Lucy Lyman for hosing our meeting at Jennings and to Marcia Benvenuti for sharing your school garden curriculum with us!  We will be making copies and posting them on this blog for everyone to take a look at. 

Check out our  New Facebook page launched for our New London County School Garden Network

 https://www.facebook.com/nlcountyschoolgardennetwork


 2015 New London County School Garden Mini-Grants:

These $500 grants went to the following schools. Bacon Academy, Stonington High School, the Integrated Day Charter School, Kelly Middle School, Robert Fitch High School, Mary Morrisson Elementary School, C.B. Jennings, Great Neck Elementary School, Voluntown Elementary School and New London High School. On October 7th, these schools attended a joint meeting of the ACHIEVE New London County and Farm to School Advisory Council to share how they used their grant to grow their school garden program.  We will be posting more photos for you to see but in the meantime, check out this video, produced by Lauren Hickey at Bacon Academy in Colchester, CT.




 

 Available Grants:

Grant for Gardens, Annie’s

Annie’s offers grants for school gardens that connect children directly to real food. These funds can be used to buy gardening tools, seeds or other needed supplies. 30 schools will receive $2,500 and three schools will receive $5,000. The deadline to apply to Annie’s 2015 Grants for Gardens program is December 4, 2015 at 11:59 PM (PST). Winners will be selected and notified in February 2016. Learn more and apply here. 

Recycle CT Grants: The grants to schools can be used to fund projects such as:  field trips, school assemblies, or staff participation in workshops; purchase equipment for staff to better comply with recycling requirements; purchase re-useable dishes and flatware for the cafeteria as an alternative to single use items; buy equipment for on-site composting.Open to all CT-based K-12 schools, with preference for schools registered with the CT GreenLeaf Schools program. Maximum gift is $1500. Grant application due November 15, 2015 (CT Recycles Day). Links to Grant info: http://recyclect.org/Grants

 

Upcoming School Garden Network Meetings:

Our next New London County School Garden Meeting will take place on Wednesday, November 18, at 4:00pm at Mary Morrisson Elementary School, at 154 Toll Gate St, Groton, CT 06340 · Directions .

School Garden News:

Cultivating Communities through School Gardens

Because children spend up to 10 hours of their days in schools, the school garden can provide the most immediate, even singular, ecosystem that they will connect to in their childhood. Although kids’ time outdoors is diminishing, experts are finding that green environments are essential to human health. Read more at Mother Earth News. 

Thanks Everyone - see you at our upcoming meeting and on our new Facebook Page!