December 2016 & January 2017 Photo Moment of the Month

December 2016

School Garden Support Organizations unite! We hosted 19 school garden support organizations from across the nation for a week-long institute in early December to share successful program models and best practices for supporting school gardens. These 30 people and their organizations serve more than 270,000 students, and the group included both long-time leaders and fledgling programs for a vibrant exchange of ideas and perspectives. It was a truly inspiring week, capped with an evening of networking with school garden educators from our greater Santa Cruz region. The excitement continued this month when our fantastic partner, Whole Kids Foundation, confirmed that they look forward to collaborating with us to host a second annual SGSO Institute in 2017!

Participants had this to say at the end of the week:

“The SGSO Leadership Institute provided fantastic resources and set us up to lead effective trainings. We are already communicating with other participants around the US to share resources and questions.”

“We can't wait to get to work! We are so inspired!”

“Thanks for your vision and leadership!”

January 2017

Watsonville School Garden Crew! Carol and Valerie are part of a crew of five college interns working and learning in our Watsonville School Garden Project this season. Each week, the team works with Life Lab staff to build and renovate school gardens at Pajaro Valley Unified School District elementary schools and to support teachers in delivering hands-on lessons in the garden with students. Breathing life into gardens in need of love and developing future school garden educators is a great combination. We look forward to growing the WSG Crew to include more interns and schools!