"Grow to Learn" Urban Agriculture and school food initiative

The PACT "Grow to Learn" Urban Agriculture Initiative is designed to grow and donate organic produce to food banks across the GTA. PACT partners with TDSB to identify and establish a number of schoolyard gardens and then students and community volunteers grow produce under the supervision of a PACT Urban Agriculture Leader. The gardens act as both a living classroom for the teachers/students and as after-school programming where students can learn through experience and complete required community service hours.

The program works in several neighbourhoods in Toronto. Students and adult volunteers gain experience and skills that can be beneficial in job or university applications. The project focuses on raising environmental and community awareness, increasing youth empowerment in at-risk neighbourhoods, and addressing the negative health and social effects of urban poverty. These gardens encourage environmental education and youth civic engagement, while providing a local food system, which supports planting, growing, eating, and composting as part of holistic programming.

PACT provides students with a safe place to hang out in an educational environment. Grow to Learn supports and nurtures spaces where neighbours can meet and learn about each other and the needs: in the community; in the schools; at the food banks and across the neighbourhood.

http://www.pactprogram.ca/pact/PACTGrow2Learn.html

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• youth
• skills
• food
• hunger
• garden
• urban agriculture