Program areas at Kitchen Garden Project Garden-Raised Bounty
Youth programsgrub provides opportunity youth (youth who are experiencing barriers to success) a safe and engaging learning and work environment rooted in sustainable agriculture. Our grounded program serves youth who are seeking their ged, and combines job training, academic support, community engagement, leadership opportunities, and team building. In this context, youth experience a supportive community where they grow their own skills and resilience. Graduates from grounded can apply to continue as farm assistants or farm coordinators, for additional leadership and vocational training opportunities. In 2021-2022, we engaged a total of 41 youth across our summer, fall, winter and spring cohorts with almost 9,000 hours of participant programming. Youth grew over 13,000 lbs of food for themselves, the community, and local hunger relief programs. Youth who graduated from the youth program stepped into new employment and educational pursuits with increased job skills, confidence, sense of connection to community, and communication skills!from the voice of a participant:"i was in a very unsure, scary time in my life. Grub continues to show me my own value and be there for me when i need community most. This job is helping straighten my path in life. "2021 youth
Community food solutions programsour community food solutions program is composed of two main projects: our grub Garden Project (ggp) and veteran programming. In this ongoing time of great need, grub's Garden Project (ggp) has been on the ground, bringing joy and resiliency to people with low incomes through the gift of gardens! In 2021-2022, we built 40 new home gardens, and supported hundreds of gardeners with online and in-person resources. Through a partnership with snap-ed, we've launched three advisory groups to inform modifications to our existing free home Garden program. Advisory groups of bipoc, lgbtqia+, and ggp alumni will provide recommendations to enhance the accessibility, relevance, and sustainability of the program for community members. In our veteran programming efforts, we began supporting several gardening projects at joint base lewis mcchord, and offered over 100 online guerrilla gardening and council sessions where military veterans gather virtually to share stories, hold experiences, and heal through community. We launched the "healing through hives" Project with the Washington state beekeepers association and have certified over 20 veterans and active duty service members and their families as beekeepers, plus supported three community apiaries on veteran-centric growing sites. From the voice of a Garden recipient:"this is a wonderful, tremendous experience! It helped me out a lot to get out and enjoy my yard and to be a witness to the fruits of my labor, literally! "2021 Garden recipient
Wild foods & medicines programsgrub's wild foods and medicines program work provides educational resources, community classes, teacher training, and year-long tribal internships that connect people with the land, the seasons, and the community. Tend, gather and grow (tgg) is a k-12 steam curriculum dedicated to educating people about wild plants, local landscapes, and the rich cultural traditions that surround them. It is intended for k-12 teachers and community educators with a focus on serving northwest native and regional youth, and has been created in partnership with grub and local tribal communities. Through discovering the wonders of plant life embedded in the lessons within the tgg curriculum, youth build skills in food security, health, social/emotional intelligence, and land stewardship. Plant teachings for building social-emotional skills is a toolkit developed in partnership with northwest indian treatment center, which includes a book, plant cards, an activity guide, and a series of movement activities. The toolkit helps to teach how plants can lead us in being healthy and resilient. In 2021-2022, we updated tend curriculum components, added new lessons, handouts, guides, videos, and coloring pages, and developed two accompanying calendars. After being approved as a career and technical education (cte) certified curriculum, we developed a new exploratory cte framework for high schoolers, which was also approved as cte certified! We also completed the tend toolkit which includes discussion on career connected learning and hosted 7 teacher trainings based on the tend curriculum. For our plant teachings for growing social-emotional skills toolkit, we completed 3 movement videos, updated the teacher activity guide, added plant infographics, and offered 5 teacher trainings for this toolkit. We continued offering online community workshops on various pacific northwest local plants, and attended 4 conferences in which we shared knowledge from our tend curriculum and plant teachings toolkit. 31 educators participated in our year-long tribal educators' learning cohort, and hundreds of educators participated in shorter trainings. From the voice of a participant:"i feel like my heart knew this knowledge from my ancestors, but i didn't have the language for it in my brain and now it does!" 2021 plant teachings participant
Other programs.