Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Over the duration of the project, the target audiences included students, parents and guardians, low-income community residents, and community stakeholders. Students: LCSG provided garden-based programming, food distribution, nutrition and agricultural career exposure and education to over 4,600 K-8 students annually at each of the 20 elementary and middle schools in the Longview and Kelso, Washington, school districts. Thirteen local farmers andproducers visited our garden programs over the project duration, for a total of 24 visits, to connect with students, and conduct interactive activities that educated children on a diversity of careers in agriculturefrom producing fruit (berries), honey, mushrooms, traditional vegetable farming, and growing herbs and crops important to Indigenous tribes and more. We hired an additional Garden Coordinator in 2021 to work with the students and families at our highest needs schools: St. Helen's Elementary School, Wallace Elementary School and Kessler Elementary School. Our new Garden Coordinator and other members of our team hosted family cooking nights with families in these low income neighborhoods. She conducted adoor-to-door campaign in the Wallace Elementary neighborhood toensure that residents and families are aware of our programs and food distribution program. We have been distributing food to families in these neighborhoods, and opening our gardens for summer engagement and activities for kids and families as well. Weexpanded our garden activities and offerings by fully operationalizing and staffing the school garden at Wallace Elementary School during the 2021-2022 academic year and summer. Almost 400 students at Wallace Elementary annuallyenjoy weekly programming year-round, where they are able to come to their school garden with their teachersto engage in outdoor learning that connects with their indoor book learning. Weprovided high-quality garden-based programming for summer school programs in both Longview and Kelso School Districts, ensuring that over 3,000 students who need additional academic support are also receiving hands-on experiential learning opportunities as part of their summer school experience. Parents/Guardians/Educators: Along with the students, their families, parents and guardians are able to access fresh produce at their schools during the April-November growing season through farm stands and open garden days, and we conducted various teacher and parent engagement activities including garden orientation and family cooking nights. Low-income Community Residents:Our food distribution programaims to assist BIPOC and low-income communities in Longview and Kelso, Washington. Particular priority wasgiven to South Kelso and Highlands neighborhood residents who experience greater disparities due, in part to lack of fresh produce access, especially the Chuukese and Latinx communities. These neighborhoods are food deserts where grocery stores are not accessible by walking or where adequate public transportation doesn't exist. Through our existing partnerships with the Highlands Neighborhood Association, the Family Community Resource Center for Longview School District and the Youth and FamilyLink Wallace Neighborhood Center in South Kelso, we ensured that produce wasavailable in several convenient locations for families. Community Stakeholders: Together with Youth and Family Link (a local nonprofitwho we partner with regularly), we connected with Latinx and Chuukese families to ensure they are able to take advantage of our free fresh produce and garden-based activities.We also partnered with Youth and Family Link to develop their Neighborhood Community Center in the traditionally low-income South Kelso neighborhoodwhere Wallace Elementary School is located. This Center houses a community kitchen for neighborhood use, as well as some smaller demonstration and learning gardens for their headstart program, and for community members to use. We served as a partner and technical assistance provider during the construction of thegarden spaces, and together with Link's Head Start students, we prepared soil and planted tomatoes, herbs, artichoke, flowers, peas and beans in their new garden space. LCSG Spanish speaking staff were on site, talking to native spanish speaking kids. We also had a station in a classroom where kids explored and learned about compost, seeds, worms and life cycles. Throughout the duration of the project we partnered with the Highlands Neighborhood Association to expand access to fresh food and garden activities for children and families in the high poverty, food insecure Highlands Neighborhood in Longview. We provided technical assistance to the neighborhood association's garden team, and we assisted them in distributing our produce and theirs to food insecure neighborhood residents. Changes/Problems:There were no major changes or problems associated with this project. We did experience the following minor delays, but were able to carry out our goals by the end of the grant timeline. We were delayed in our timeline for implementing this project due to the difficulties recruiting a new Garden Coordinator, and some organizational restructuring that took place during Fall 2021. We are now organized into a shared leadership model of organizational development, and no longer have a traditional executive director, but the restructuringprocess required a lot of time and energy that wasn't anticipated. However, we only experienceda 3 month delay and were able tosuccessfully hirea wonderful new garden coordinator who hit the ground running in time to implement spring programs at Wallace and St. Helen's elementary schools, and is still working at those schools today. Our collaboration with the Link Wallace Neighborhood Center wasslightly delayed due to construction delays and Youth and Family Link's staffing difficulties. However, the neighborhood center was completed and we were able to assist their teachers and students with the installation of a small garden. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our staff facilitated professional development opportunities for 35 elementary school teachers in 2022 during our garden-based lessons. Staffdemonstrated how to manage classrooms outdoors, design hands-on activities for students that meet academic standards and enrich learning through garden-based lessons and activities. On an annual basis, staff provides educators at all 20schools with an educator's resource for engaging with their students in the garden. Guidance includes following the "Four Garden Agreements" - 1) "Walk in the Garden" -Why is walking the right way to move around in the garden? "So we don't step on plants or creatures" "So we can stay safe, and keep each other safe" "So we can notice everything"; 2)"Wait to Be Invited" - (To pick, to eat, to use a tool) "So we know what to do", "So we don't pick things that aren't ripe" "So we can stay safe"; Exceptions are ok - examples: tasting chives or nasturtiums, getting gloves, picking a few herb leaves to smell, picking a ripe berry, touching plants or creatures gently; 3)"Listen with Respect"- To the adults, to each other, to the plants and creatures in the garden; and 4) "Take a Deep Breath" We can feel calm and peaceful in the garden. In February 2023, two of our staff members helped leada teacher workshop hosted by Lower Columbia Nature Network to discuss what it takes to get a school garden up and running, how teachers can use their gardens as social emotional spaces, barriers to use, sample games, lessons and activities, and finding resources to support garden programming. These professional development opportunities empower teachers to take their classes into their school garden on their own, even without our staff facilitating lessons, which means more students will receive hands on garden education experiences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To disseminate the results of Lower Columbia School Gardens' programs to the various communities of interest, weemployed a multi-faceted approach tailored to each group: 1. Students: Our Garden Coordinators worked closely with school administrators and individual teachers to bring awareness of available garden programming, including opportunities for STEM learning within each garden. We distributed emailnewsletters and announcements to teachers and parentsto highlight program successes and activities. We brought students and their teachers into the garden to plant, harvest, learn about compost, and encourage independent interaction with the garden. Garden Coordinators collaborated with educators to integrate updates about the program into classroom communication channels or curriculum materials. For many classes, we integrated "seed life cycle" curriculum into garden programming, giving kids a hands-on way to bring their lessons to life, and brought teachers into the garden to participate. We conducted 24 cooking classes for 3rd graders and their teachers at Northlake Elementary school in Longview. We participated inan annual Youth Summit put on by the EPIC (Empowering People and Impacting Community) Coalition wherein we held cooking classes for over 300 middle school students. We distributed information about the school gardens through the Longview School District Facebook page. 2. Parents and Guardians: Our Garden Coordinator at Wallace Elementaryheldinformation sessions during Open House events to inform teachers, students and parents about thebenefits of the school garden programs and how they can support studentinvolvement. She also conducted seven Open Garden Days each summer season so that parents, students and community members could access the garden, harvest, grow produce, get to know each other and learn about garden programming. We sentout email updates toparents and guardians throughout the year, highlighting upcoming events, successes, and ways they can get involved. We hosted family cooking nights in conjunction with Longview School District's Family Resource Center to actively involve parents in the program and provide them with practical skills and knowledge. 3. Low-income Community Residents: We engaged with community organizations, such as the Highlands Neighborhood Association and the Longview School District Family Community Resource Center, to disseminate information about food distribution programs and garden activities through their communication channels as well as host family cooking nights and provide technical support for their garden activities. We also partnered with Youth and Family Link to connect us with students and families who were most in need of educational support services and food access. Youth and Family Link has dedicated Community Health Workers on staff who identify as members of communities that we were trying to reach through this project, namely the Chuukese and Latino/a communities. Our staff coordinated a Planting Day during summer 2023 with Head Start students at the new Link Wallace Neighborhood Center. Kids prepared soil and planted tomatoes, herbs, artichoke, flowers, peas, and beans in their new garden. Our spanish-speaking staff were on site, talking with native spanish speaking kids. We delivered produce to Radical Love, a local non-profit that serves the homeless and housing insecure community members with hot meals throughout the year. We participated in community events andgatherings to raise awareness about the availability of fresh produce and educational opportunities provided by ourprograms. We provided food, cider, interactive activities, personal outreachand printed materials at annual community events such as Ethnic Support Council's International Festival, Earth Day, the City of Longview's Concerts in the Park, the Longview Downtowners' Squirrel Fest event, the Longview Public Library's Cider Press Festival, the Cowlitz Tribe Health Walk, and the Friends of Galileo Solstice Walk. We tabled a Red Canoe Credit Union volunteer event at Youth and Family Link. We conducted a door-to-door campaign and distributed flyers in English and Spanish to 40 homes in the neighborhood surrounding Wallace Elementary in order to bring awareness to the free farm stand food distribution program there as well as open community garden days and opportunities. 4. Community Stakeholders: We provided informational presentations for community service organizations such as Longview Rotary, Kelso Elks, Junior League of Lower Columbia, and the 100 Women Who Care organization. We provided fresh rosemary to the Cowlitz County Chaplain's office to include in their care packages for first responders. We participated in annual Camas plantings with the Cowlitz Tribe in order to foster a deeper connection with the native american community and bring awareness of our programs. We ranafeaturein Cowlitz County's newspaper, The Daily News, in order to spread the word about weeklyopen garden days for the community. We also utilized our social media platforms and our blogto highlight our food distribution program, open garden days, as well as volunteer opportunities for community in general. For all of these communities, we hosted Open Garden Days at 19 school gardens wherein any interested community member could come and work in the garden, harvest food and get to know more about our programs. We posted information on our social media channels and emailed our 3,500+ subscribers about dates and times. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: After a broad outreach and engagement effort with local producers, LCSG hosted 12 visits with 10 different local farmers and students at Middle School After-School garden programs in all five middle schools in Longview and Kelso in 2022. These visits were designed to promote career exploration and food systems education, and included herb and vegetable farmers, mushroom growers, representatives from the Cowlitz Tribe wellness garden, berry producers, and native plant growers. 102 middle school students had at least 3 direct connections with a local producer. In 2023, we hosted 11 visits with 7 different local farmers and producers and 167 middle school students had direct connections with these local producers. We also served 2364 elementary students with garden-based lessons during spring 2022. During the 2022-2023 school year, we served approximately 3,000 students in 14 elementary schools. We also engaged 667 students in garden learning activities during the 2022 summer school sessions in both Longview and Kelso school districts. In 2023, only Longview school district conducted summer school, and we engaged 115 students in garden-based activities. Goal 2: We hired a new 1.0 Garden Coordinator to expand program access in February 2022. We partnered with Youth and Family Link on the installation of a new community garden at their community center in South Kelso. In 2023, we developedsmall areas at the Link Wallace Neighborhood Center (LWNC) into gardens. We have planted apple and Asian pear trees, and students are currently planting other vegetables, herbs and pollinator friendly plants there. We coordinated a Planting Day with LWNC Head Start students. Kids prepared soil and planted tomatoes, herbs, artichoke, flowers, peas, beans in their new garden. LCSG Spanish speaking staff were on site, talking to native Spanish speaking kids. We also had a station in the classroom where kids explored and learned about compost, seeds, worms, and life cycles. We have integrated our work with the Highlands Neighborhood Association and provided technical assistance for their volunteer community gardening team. One of our staff persons has attended board meetings to assess their needs and provide help where needed. We have advised the gardening team, provided seeds and starts, helped distribute their food to neighborhood residents (along with our own) and engaged community residents through our partnership. We installed a new garden at Wallace Elementary School with the help of the students there, which expanded garden programming to approximately 300 students annually. Kelso's summer school programs were hosted at Wallace in 2022. Faced with an initial expanse of dead, rocky soil, summer school students worked to add compost, plant cover crops, and move gravel to create paths.The garden has since been completed, and it is fully operational for teaching, learning and community gathering. Students, teachers and community members are now utilizing the garden regularly as a local asset to access food and learning opportunities. In addition to all the vegetables, fruit, herbs, and pollinator friendly plantings, we have added a native plant area to help connect kids with Cowlitz tribe's use of and relationship with plants. Weekly garden-based activities were implemented at Wallace, St. Helen's and Kessler Elementary Schools, starting in Fall 2021, and they have continuedthrough each growing season ever since. Elementary students receiveweekly garden-based programming during their school day, summer open garden opportunities and activities, weekly food distribution during the growing season. During the 2021-2022 school year, we had 1,955student visits to the gardens at the three focus schools. During the 2022-2023 school year, we had 1,674student visitsto the gardens at the three focus schools. Goal 3: From spring 2022 through summer 2023, 265 middle school students participated in after-school middle school garden clubs that actively incorporated visits from farmers and local producers to highlight agricultural careers and local produce, as well as promotion of leadership skills. In consultation with Insight For Action, we developed and conducted pre- and post-programming surveys about garden-based activities throughout the project period, including after-school Middle School garden clubs, activities with local farmers and food producers, summer school, and garden lessons offered during the school day. Pre surveys were conducted in March, and post surveys were conducted in June. Approximately 50 middle school students participated in Garden Club surveys each year. These surveys assessed preferences for fruits and vegetables, improvement of gardening and cooking skills and knowledge, feelings while working in the garden, improvement of leadership skills, career development, environmental stewardship and impact of farmer visits and agricultural education. We also developed and conducted surveys for elementary school teachers in order to assess the effectiveness of garden programming and how to increase teacher and student access to their school garden. We surveyed 58 teachers in 2022 and 77 teachers in 2023. We continue to use the surveys to inform us as to the impact of our garden programming and ways that we can improve.
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:During the most recent reporting period, LCSG continued to serve20 elementary and middle schools in two school districts in rural Longview and Kelso, Washington. Our staff provided garden, nutrition and agricultural exposure and education to more than 4,600 K-8 students during the past year through the following programmatic, garden-based activities: - 10 local farmers or producers visited our garden programs to connect with students, conduct interactive activities that educated children on a diversity of careers in agricultural from producing fruit (berries), honey, traditional vegetable farming, growing herbs and crops important to Indigenous tribes and more. - We successfully hired a new Garden Coordinator who is enabling us to better connect with students and families at our highest needs schools: St. Helen's Elementary School, Wallace Elementary School and Kessler Elementary School. Our new Garden Coordinator and other members of our team have hosted family cooking nights with families in these low-income neighborhoods, and we're working on a door-to-door campaign to ensure our program offerings are meeting community needs. We have been distributing food to families in these neighborhoods, and opening our gardens for summer engagement and activities for kids and families as well. Together with Youth and Family Link (another non-profit locally who we partner with regularly), we are connecting especially with Latinx and Chuukese families to ensure they are able to take advantage of our free fresh produce and garden-based activities. - We have expanded our garden activities and offerings by fully operationalizing and staffing the school garden at Wallace Elementary School during the 2021-2022 academic year and summer. Almost 400 students at Wallace now enjoy weekly programming year-round, where they are able to come to their school garden with their classroom to engage in outdoor learning that connects with their indoor book learning. Students and families are able to access fresh produce at their school during the April-November growing season, and we have conducted various teacher and parent engagement activities including garden orientation and family cooking nights. - We have provided high-quality garden-based programming for summer school programs in both Longview and Kelso School Districts, ensuring that over 3,000 students who need additional academic support are also receiving hands-on experiential learning opportunities as part of their summer school experience. - We continue to partner with the Highlands Neighborhood Association to expand access to fresh food and garden activities for children and families in the Highlands Neighborhood. We have provided technical assistance to the neighborhood association's garden team, and we assist them in distributing our produce and theirs to food insecure neighborhood residents. - We have also continuted to partner with Youth and Family Link to develop their Neighborhood Community Center in the South Kelso neighborhood, where Wallace Elementary School is located. This center will also house a community kitchen for neighborhood use, and some smaller demonstration and learning gardens for their headstart program, and for community members to use. The construction of the center, kitchen and garden spaces has been delayed due to inflation costs, difficult finding a contractor and other issues related to construction, but we will continue to serve as a partner and technical assistance provider during the upcoming year of the project term to see this completed. Changes/Problems:We were delayed in our timeline for implementing this project due to the difficulties recruiting for a new garden coordinator, and some organizational restructuring that took place during fall 2021. We are now organized into a shared leadership model of organizational development, and no longer have a traditional executive director,but that process required a lot of time and energy that wasn't anticipated. However, despite a 3 month delay, we successfully hired a wonderful new garden coordinator who hit the ground running in time to implement spring programs at Wallace and St. Helen's elementary schools, which are located in our highest need neighborhoods. Our collaboration with the Link Wallace Neighborhood Center has also been slightly delayed, though is underway now. Due to construction delays and difficulties with staffing from the Link side of things, their neighborhood center is still under construction, and the raised bed garden we were hoping to install during the winter 2021 has not yet been completed. They are well underway now, and we look forward to continuing to collaborate with Link on offering this resource to the community and the accompanying programming. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our staff facilitated professional development opportunities for 35elementary school teachers during our garden-based lessons. We demonstrate how to manage classrooms outdoors, design hands-on activities for students that meet academic standards and enrich learning through garden-based lessons and activities. These professional development opportunities empower teachers to take their classes into their school garden on their own, even without our staff facilitating lessons, which means more students will receive hands on garden education experiences. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are continuing to build out our farmer visiting program, and plan to expand the offerings this year to include special events for students and farmers to interact, including a field trip for middle school students to the Cowlitz wellness garden where they will be preparing food for the Cowlitz Tribal elders and learning about the cultivation of Indigenous crops and produce. We are working on making program modifications and changes based on our evaluation activities to improve outcomes for the students we work with. We are also building sustainable evaluation practices into our operations plan annually, so we can continue to use developed survey tools, methods, and data analysis in our work even after this grant period expires. We are continuing to expand our program offerings to include more students, and to concentrate our efforts in our highest needs schools. Our new Garden Coordinator is developing a community engagement plan for the coming year to better involve residents in our programs, ensure we are meeting community needs, and to enable more families to take advantage of the programs and services we are offering. We are looking forward to the opening of the new community center in the South Kelso neighborhood, and providing technical assistance for their community garden in 2022-2023, and we will continue to deepen our partnerhip with the Highlands Neighborhood Association in the coming year as well. We have developed several leadership activities for our middle school after school garden club that we are piloting and evaluating. We are hoping to offer more in the way of professional development for teachers in 2022-2023 academic year.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: After a broad outreach and engagement effort with local producers, LCSG hosted 12 visits with 10 different local farmers and students in our programs to promote career exploration and food systems education in 2022. 102 middle schoolstudents had at least 3 direct connections with a local producer. LCSG offered 5 middle school after school garden clubs once a week for 8 weeks during spring 2022; this program served 102middle school students with garden-based learning. We also served 2364elementary students with garden-based lessons during spring 2022. We also engaged 667students in garden learning activities during the summer school sessions in both Longview and Kelso school districts. Goal 2: We hired a new 1.0 Garden Coordinator to expand program access in February 2022. We are continuing to partner with Youth and Family Link on the installation of a new community garden at their community center, but the garden is not finished due to construction delays and inflation costs. We have integrated our work with the Highlands Neighborhood Association and provided technical assistance for their volunteer community gardening team. One of our staff persons has attended board meetings to assess their needs and provide help where needed. We have advised the gardening team, provided seeds and starts, helped distribute their food to neighborhood residents (along with our own) and engaged community residents through our partnership. Weekly garden-based activities were implemented at Wallace, St. Helen's and Kessler Elementary Schools, starting in Fall 2021, and continuing through the spring and summer growing seasons. Elementary students received weekly garden-based programming during their school day, summer open garden opportunities and activities, weekly food distribution during the growing season. Goal 3: Garden staff developed leadership activities for middle school students during their after school garden clubs and we evaluated our effectiveness at building leadership skills through pre and post surveys. 102middle school students experiences a garden club experience that included visits with farmers and agricultural career exploration in spring 2022. We conducted pre and post surveys during the spring program, and will continue to do that in the next season of our programs.
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