Seeing my vision come to life at Ynez & Rice Elementary Schools starting fall 2025 has been most rewarding. It’s a joy to bring something new to the students who may not have had exposure to different foods and flavors outside their own culture. And teaching basic knife and cooking skills which I hope the students find valuable as they grow and develop. The best part is enjoying the fruits of their labor.
-Amy Kwan-Garcia, Enrichment Specialist
Our successful clean up, soil prep, planting and watering with the Nutritional Advisory Council and ASB students (who came in the morning on a pupil free day!) at Baldwin Elementary.
We appreciate Sprouts Foundation for their support of this garden program.
Thanks to @ActiveSGV for hosting the Clean Air and Water Fair this past weekend! We were able to meet some fellow local environmental groups at a converted school with mature native landscaping and also gave away narrow leaf milkweed to 58 additional community members!
Our workshop at @MontereyParkLib was a success as well. Again thanks to Alhambra HS #ERAS club (@alhambra_eras) for volunteering. The library staff wants us to come back for additional workshops in the future!
Thank you to #AlhambraLibrary and #ERAS (Alhambra High School’s Environmental Resource Society; @alhambra_eras on Instagram) for hosting and helping with our first Monarch and Milkweed workshop with seed sowing and plant giveaway! We had a full house of very engaged community members learning and connecting over the importance of gardening to support Monarch butterflies!
Thanks to the support of the San Gabriel Valley Municipal Water District.
#SanGabrielHighSchool’s Matador garden got a refresh this past weekend: students and our garden team helped finish their drip irrigation system, weeded and replanted both the native garden section and all the raised beds. This enhanced green space is cherished and used by students from all over campus, and now it will be more productive and beautiful as we head into the fall/winter garden season!
One of our community members celebrated her 80th birthday and asked for donations of school supplies and we connected her to our partner school, Ynez Elementary. Teachers were excited to receive additional supplies to support their classrooms all in thanks to her generosity! If others want to do a “birthday fundraiser” like this, let us know and we can make it happen locally!
Baldwin Elementary’s farm to table garden program kicks off with a simple caprese salad garden, with planting of cherry tomatoes, basil and oregano in one of the empty beds. We also learned how to propagate potatoes that started sprouting as well as clipping basil and oregano cuttings to root in water. Thanks to a monster group of 30 student who turned out for the school’s NAC (Nutritional Advisory Council) and for helping and learning as well as a thank you to Sprouts Foundation for funding another year at Baldwin!
Thank you to Citizens Business Bank for supporting our HOPE Initiatives for students and families in the schools we serve. Their generous commitment to those most in need is appreciated!
We spared no time to get started on the 4th/5th grade edible garden at #Ynez Elementary on the first week of school. Some of the herbs and veggies will help with the cooking enrichment classes that restart next month. Students were excited to plant and water!”
