Schools - "Growing to Give"
The Foodshare "Growing to Give" project is encouraging every school in the UK and around the world to create a Foodshare Bed and grow fresh produce for a local charity. Our vision is that one day every school will be growing for a local charity, whether a pot of lettuce on the classroom window sill or dedicated beds in the school allotment.
If you already have a school garden or allotment, creating a Foodshare Bed will be a very exciting project for pupils. If you don't grow at school, here's your opportunity!
How Do We Start?
1) Register with Foodshare.
2) Pick a local charity that provides food to people (or search for one here).
3) Read the Foodshare Guide for Schools
4) Plan your Foodshare Bed and get growing!
You can customise your own Foodshare sign for your bed to show which charity you are growing for. Visit our resources page to download the artwork.
Foodshare on ITV - watch how one school has embraced the project
A Case Study: Milton Primary School
The Growing To Give project originally started at Milton Primary School in Cambridgeshire. Over 250 children (two-thirds of the school) were part of a lunchtime Gardening Club. The children created a Foodshare Bed on their school allotment to grow for the children at the Milton Hospice which is half a mile away. A "Donation Station" has been set up where harvests from the school allotment plus surplus produce collected by pupils from the local community are collected. This food is then delivered by pupils to the Hospice the same day. In their first "Foodshare year" the pupils grew and donatedover £500 worth of fresh produce! If every school could achieve this, over £8.5m of food could be donated to charities!
The Harest Hereos Project
Due to the popularity of Foodshare in schools, we launched the "Harvest Heroes" programme, enabling every child to sow and grow their own Foodshare plant in the classroom to take home and continue growing with their families. The produce from the plant shared between the family and the school's Foodshare charity, enabling everyone experience the wonders of freshly home-grown food.
The Harvest Festival Is Not Just For October!
The Growing To Give campaign turns the Harvest Festival into a celebration right across the growing season, with food donated on a regular basis. Children will learn valuable life skills of growing and sharing. They will have opportunities to learn more about local charities. It is a wonderful way for the school to strengthen their bonds within the community.
Visit our growing and comprehensive Foodshare Guide for Schools to give you lots of ideas of how to run your Foodshare project. We are working away on lots of great Tools for Schools, such as the Harvest Totaliser, where pupils weigh and record their harvest, finding out what the produce would have cost to buy in the Supermarket. Children can have fun documenting their progress either through blogging or "seed to plate" photo diaries. Foodshare easily lends itself to assemblies for more general themed learning and sharing.
We're priviledge to be working alongside fantastic organisations such as the Royal Horticultural Society’s (RHS) Campaign for School Gardening and Garden Organic. If you run a schools programme and are interested in integrating Foodshare, Sign Up Today for more information.
Let's get growing!
