Project Giving Gardens helps feed Atlanta students, families

The Captain Planet Foundation works to empower young people to care and work for the betterment of our planet. It has funded more than 2,700 hands-on environmental education projects with schools and nonprofits through a small grants program. This year in Atlanta, one of the Captain Planet Foundation’s main efforts is Project Giving Gardens.

“Project Giving Gardens provides employment, and also fresh, locally grown and free produce for students and families,” said Ashley Rouse, director of Project Learning Gardens and Project Giving Gardens.

In spring of 2020 Project Giving Gardens was established, creating a collaboration between dozens of schools in metro Atlanta and more than 20 community gardens aligned with Food Well Alliance.

“Combined, these gardens committed their arable land, beginning in May 2020, to grow close to 100,000 pounds of fresh, organically grown food,” said Rouse. “We teamed up with food banks and other partners to cultivate, plant and distribute fresh food from these gardens to Atlanta students and families hit hardest by the COVID-19 crisis.”

The program has now expanded outside of Geor- gia, with 57 community and school gardens in California’s Bay Area working with Conscious Kitchen and The Edible Schoolyard Project, and it continues to grow.

“Folks can donate time by volunteering to harvest or prepare garden sites in the spring, or they can support the program by donating funds that will be used for paying growers and for seeds, plants, soil and har- vest supplies for schools,” said Rouse.