About Us

Programs

Events

News

Businesses

Partnerships

Get Involved

Contact Us

Growing Healthy Gardens

Growing Healthy is a collaboration of six groups working together in Cambridge and Somerville to bring more locally grown foods into the lives of kids and families. Its members include The Institute for Community Health, CitySprouts, Groundwork Somerville, The Federation of Massachusetts Farmers' Markets, and the Cambridge and Somerville Schools' Food Service Departments.

Working closely with this Collaborative, school administration, teachers, students and community volunteers, GWS is transforming dormant school courtyards into vibrant nutrition learning gardens at three Somerville elementary schools. The gardens, along with school menu changes, are intended to increase student awareness, consumption, and knowledge of fruits and vegetables. The gardens serve as an outdoor classroom where children experience the joy of planning, growing, preparing and eating good, healthy foods. "Featured Vegetable of the Month" -- Each month the Somerville School Food Service features a fruit or vegetable of the month in the school cafeterias. The featured foods are served several times on the lunch menu and are selected based on seasonality and sourced from our local growers. Kids will get to try local tomatoes in September prepared in as a tomato, basil and mozzarella salad (And guess what? The basil will be harvested from our school gardens!) And cucumbers in March! Yep, we will be featuring locally grown and processed pickled cucumbers! Click here to see the Featured Vegetables for the 2007-2008 school year!

Check out the story of one garden and then click on a school below to see the effects of the Gardens Program:

• Arthur D. Healey School Garden
• East Somerville Community School Garden
• Winter Hill Community School Garden
• West Somerville Neighborhood School Garden
• Brown School Garden
• Argenziano School Garden

Also check out our past projects:

• Local Foods in Cafeterias and Garden Activity Days

Gardens Program

GWS offers year-round garden-based education for 4th through 8th graders to reach youth as they are beginning to make their own choices about food. Growing Healthy provides groups of students at East Somerville and Lincoln Park Community School the opportunity to plan, plant, tend and harvest from their own garden. Our program includes:

• After school gardening and cooking sessions
• Lunch clubs exploring featured fruits and vegetables
• Summer gardening camp with the Community Schools and Somerville Boys & Girls Club
• Raising seedlings for the garden in classrooms
• Community building activities
• Special lunchtime events such as demonstrations, taste tests and trivia games
• Field trips to nearby organic farms and markets such as Gaining Ground in Concord, MA

Participants in the Growing Healthy After School Gardening Program will increase their understanding of:

Gardens and Plants

• Basic skills to be able to grow organic fruits and vegetables in an urban garden or containers
• Different parts of plants, and each plant's needs and characteristics

Nutrition

• How certain foods nourish our bodies
• The tools to begin to make healthy food choices in their own lives

Ecology

• Inter-relationship among living things and the cycles in nature
• Our food system and the context for how food comes to our table
• Impact our choices make on ourselves and the environment

How can I get involved?

Parents, teachers, students, businesses, and community residents are encouraged to participate:

• Share a skill with the after school Gardening Club
• Help plan garden events
• Join the Eat Smart Play Hard Student Advisory Council
• Tend the gardens as a Garden Steward
• Use the gardens as your outdoor classroom

Groundwork Somerville will also accept donations, including materials for this program. With your help, we can develop gardens and offer this program to more children in Somerville.

(Why donate?)

© 2008, Groundwork Somerville