Today, GrowNYC and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance New York City—co-founders of Grow to Learn: the Citywide School Gardens Initiative—were joined by Deputy NYC Parks Commissioner Larry Scott Blackmon, Chef Michael Anthony of Gramercy Tavern and staff and families at PS 154 in Windsor Terrace to highlight the critical nutrition lessons gardens provide and kick-off a week-long promo, Dining Out for School Gardens.

Students at PS 154 were outside participating in a cooking demo with Chef Michael Anthony and Whitney Reuling, Garden to Cafe Coordinator for the Office of SchoolFood, as part of Harvest Day, where students serve up what they’ve grown in the garden in their cafeteria.

PS 154 was recently awarded a Grow to Learn mini-grant to amend garden beds, purchase composters and lights so they can grow seeds indoors. After registering their garden on www.nyc.gov/growtolearn, they received donated plant materials and technical assistance from Grow to Learn Partner Green Thumb, and their Harvest Day and other nutrition curriculum comes from participating in Garden to School Café, another partner in Grow to Learn.

From June 24 – 30, you can visit participating restaurants and help NYC youth gain better skills, habits and knowledge about growing, eating and preparing food. All of the Dining Out for School Gardens restaurants, will donate a percentage of the sales of one or more menu items towards supporting school gardens.

Grow to Learn recently awarded 29 Mini-Grants of up to $2,000 to help NYC schools keep their gardens growing. Schools will use funds to purchase soil, tools, seeds, hoses, wheelbarrows, gloves, and even provide professional development and garden training for teachers. "We evaluated over 60 competitive proposals, and looked for projects that are well planned, sustainable and have a positive impact on children related to nutrition and environmental education," said Grow to Learn Coordinator Erica Keberle. If your school has not yet applied for a Grow to Learn Mini-Grant, our next application deadline is June 30, 2011. Those schools that did not receive a Mini-Grant during the last round are eligible to reapply. Past Mini-Grant recipients are not eligible to reapply. Now is the perfect time to register your garden with Grow to Learn and apply for a Mini-Grant. Special thanks to Bank of America and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for their generous support of Grow to Learn Mini-Grants. The 29 grantees are: Bronx Dewitt Clinton High School University Heights High School PS 43 Jonas Bronck & Mott Haven Academy Charter School Brooklyn Alternate Learning Center - John Jay Community Roots Charter School High School for Public Service Kurt Hahn School Bedford Village School, Public School 3 The Clinton Hill School, PS 20 PS 29 John M. Harrigan John W. Kimball Learning Center, PS 107 PS 149 Danny Kaye PS 154 PS 230 Doris L. Cohen PS 261 Philip Livingston Park Slope Elementary and Middle School, PS/MS 282 The William Penn School, PS 321 Manhattan LaGuardia Arts High School Muscota New School & Amistad Dual Language School John Melser Charrette School, PS 3 The William T. Harris School, PS 11 River East Elementary School, PS 37 PS 110 Florence Nightingale Manhattan Middle School for Scientific Inquiry, MS 328 Manhattan School for Children, PS 333 American Sign Language and English Lower School, PS 347 Queens East-West School of International Studies John Bowne Elementary, PS 20 Staten Island Intermediate School 49 Berta A. Dreyfus

For the past 6 months, GrowNYC's Open Space Greening program has been hard at work building a Children's Garden on Randall's Island. The garden features over 30 raised beds, currently growing kale, collard greens, carrots, four varieties of tomatoes, and many other vegetables and herbs. Under the guidance of GrowNYC's Gerard Lordahl, children from the Stanley Isaacs Community Center have been growing vegetables and receiving cooking instruction as part of the Isaacs Center's "The Growing Place" project. The Randall's Island Children's Learning Garden is located within the Icahn Stadium complex. School groups interested in visiting or working in the garden should contact our School Gardens Coordinator.