The Next 31 Days

You may already be familiar with the beginnings of Grow La Crosse. Local parents wanted to make a positive impact on their children’s eating habits once they started kindergarten.  That remains our focus as we lead garden lessons, hold open garden recess times, host summer school programming, bring healthy food into the cafeteria salad bar, do taste tests that can be replicated at home and host farm experiences.

That was the start of Grow and now we have grown to serve more children.

Since 2012, we’ve hosted more than 850 garden education classes and hosted more than 5,200 children at camp.   I think you’ll agree- that’s quite an accomplishment.  And it’s all thanks to the commitment of people like you.

The next 31 days, we invite you to take part in our Circle of Giving by donating between now and December 31st.   This will help us continue our good work and serve more children in 2018.

Please consider what your gift means to a child who lives without access to gardens and farms.  A gift of $20 helps provide plants for a garden bed.  $50 helps provide children with a taste test lesson.  A gift of $150 helps provide three classrooms with a hands-on garden lesson.

One special opportunity is to visit us at the Care and Share Expo this Saturday and have your donation matched.

2017 Highlights

This year, donations allowed us to:

• 273 hands-on garden experience classes taught by Grow staff
• 88% of children said they would tell their families about the lettuce wraps they made during the Grow fall taste test
• We facilitated garden work days, family harvest nights and 40 open garden exploration recess times
• Total number of times garden produce was supplied to Spence cafeteria this season: 27 times
• Grow school gardens provided space for garden lessons in for over 17 summer school classes
• Approximately 1,035 hours were put in by volunteers!
• Have 36 children attend Seeds to Success Camp free of charge.
• Have over 6,000 visits to the school gardens and farm!