
FAQ
Read below to explore commonly asked questions!
Answer:
Each partner school is served by a team of at least two Garden Educators and/or Americorps service members. That team goes to each school at least twice per week, where we bring the students out into the garden for hands-on lessons that focus on nutrition, community, and the environment. We help students learn how to improve their health through diet and exercise, how to build their social-emotional skills and learn vital skills like cooperation and teamwork that they’ll need to become successful adults. We also inform them of major issues facing the planet like pollution and climate change and how they can make a positive impact. Each day our teams come to the school, we typically work with three classes per day, generally working with banded grades (e.g. 3rd, 4th, and 5th).
Our garden lessons change season to season as well as year to year in order to keep the content fresh for students who will typically experience the garden with us for multiple years in a row. We also take care of all the material needs of the garden - from seeds and soil to hoses and tools. We also organize community events at our partner schools so families can get involved. We provide a seamless service so that we provide a solution that works for schools.
Answer:
Gardeneers was founded by teachers (alumni of Teach For America to be specific). As we were getting started, our co-founders encountered schools across Chicago that had vacant, unused garden spaces at their schools. We contacted their school leaders to ask them why these gardens weren’t being used when there is such strong evidence that garden education is so valuable for students.
The story was always one of two things. Either a superstar teacher had run the garden program years ago and then moved on, or some well-meaning group had built the garden, but expected teachers to sustain it, not cognizant of teachers’ already-heavy workload. In both cases, the conclusion was the same - the school just didn’t have someone with the time, energy and know-how to lead a successful school garden program.
We then asked what it would take to activate their unused garden spaces. They said the same thing - what they needed was the people-power. They needed someone who knew how to work well with both the plants and the kids, someone who could take care of everything from instruction to upkeep and everything in-between. Everyone knew how a garden would benefit their students, but they also knew that it wasn’t going to happen if it required overburdened teachers to do even more. For a school garden solution to be successful, it had to make the jobs of educators easier instead of putting more on their plates.
The Gardeneers model was born out of those conversations, and it has continued to evolve based on feedback from the school leaders, community members, teachers, and students we serve.
Answer:
Our funding is spread across multiple different sources as outlined below.
- Our biggest single funding source, at 40% of our budget, is Americorps. This Federal program primarily funds the living allowances for our service members. Learn more about joining our team as an Americorps service member.
- After that, our next largest funding source - roughly 25% - is grants.
- The next largest piece of our budget comes from earned revenue. Our Partner Schoolspay a service fee, and those fees comprise 10-15% of our budget. We also earn revenue through our plant sale done in partnership with Bob Zeni, “the Chicago Tomato Man”. Read more about him at the following links:
- 4,000 tomato plants for sale
- Preparing for plant pop up sale
- After that, at just under 10%, the next largest piece is corporate donations. We host volunteer events with our corporate partners. If your company is interested in partnering with Gardeneers, explore our Corporate Partners page.
- Our last three categories are events, individual donations, and merchandise sales.
- If you’d like to attend (or sponsor) our next event, explore more information about upcoming events.
- If you’d like to make a donation (or set up a regularly monthly donation - a regularly monthly gift, however small, goes a long way over time), visit our donation page.
- Lastly, if you’d like to support us by buying some cool gear, check out our Etsy shop, where 100% of the profits go to support our school garden programs.
Answer:
If you are connected to a school in Chicago, we currently have a waitlist for new partner schools, but you can get more information at our School Inquiries page.
If you are not in Chicago, here are some great resources we recommend for starting a new school garden wherever you are. Unfortunately, we do not yet have the resources to work with schools outside of Chicago or to answer incoming questions from everybody.