Kansas Avenue Youth Learning Garden

After three growing seasons, we’re ready to finish the build out of our learning garden. Specifically, we plan to:

• Build 5 new raised garden beds in our greenhouse, to increase growing opportunities during our short growing season.
• Build 7 new raised beds with bench nooks, to expand our perennial fruiting shrub area.
• Build 5 new raised beds for increased classroom use.
• Create a sun-shaped raised garden centerpiece, using metal water trough containers.
• Plant 5 fruit trees, planted in large containers.
• Create 2 new sitting areas incorporating vertical gardening.
• Build 5 stadium-style benches for portable outdoor classroom use.
• Buy garden benches, picnic tables, and shade sails to provide community sitting/eating areas during our hot summer.
• Build 2 arbors, one at each entrance.

This plan was developed by our part time Garden Coordinator, with input from students, educators and community members. The plan will be completed by current volunteers, new volunteers recruited at a “Phase 3 garden build” event, community work parties, Habitat for Humanity homeowner workshops, business community service days, school and youth service learning opportunities, and, of course, the students at Amity Elementary School and the Downtown Bend Boys & Girls Club.

Our goals are to:

• Complete the infrastructure of the learning garden so we can grow more food and increase the number of kids that get their hands dirty; and
• Cultivate community by offering on-going volunteer opportunities and creating an inviting, beautiful gathering space. 

The Environmental Center is one of the local beneficiaries of the 2014 Jack Johnson All At Once tour concert in Bend on August 24th. This gives us the opportunity to match every dollar donated to support our Kansas Avenue Learning Garden project, now through August 28th.

Once our fundraising campaign is complete, we will prioritize garden projects based on available resources and funds raised, and then lay out a timeline for garden completion. We will tap into our community volunteers and recruit new ones with scheduled garden build days in fall 2014 and spring 2015, as well as community service projects as these opportunities arise. As was done with our original 16 garden beds, youth will be incorporated into the construction of new beds, where they will learn new skills through hands-on experience.

The Kansas Avenue Learning Garden is an important part of how we achieve our mission: to embed sustainability into daily life here in Central Oregon. In the garden, we get kids outside and dirty, teach them about the connections between food, health and the environment, and provide a unique and beautiful community gathering space.

The Learning Garden is a downtown community green space that we reclaimed from a vacant, weed infested lot in 2010. Click on the video link below to see the story of this transformation.

Due to the history of the adjacent property, where a dry cleaning business operated and then burned down 25 years ago, we grow everything in tall raised beds and containers with imported soil, providing a model for urban, backyard gardens.

We also provide weekly educational programs that bring sustainability to life for local youth, from spring through fall. We primarily engage local youth within walking distance, from nearby Amity Creek Elementary School and the Downtown Bend Boys and Girls Club, who otherwise would not have a school garden opportunity. The elementary school has kids from all over the city and the Club serves primarily low to moderate income youth, many of whom qualify for Title 1 nutritional assistance. Over the last four years, the kids have helped us plan and build the garden; plant, maintain and water raised beds; and learned how to grow food, how to compost, and about the connections between how we grow our food, healthy bodies and a healthy environment. Children eat fresh garden food as much as possible, and we donate excess produce to The Family Kitchen, the local food bank that is adjacent to both the school and the Club. Over the last four years, we have averaged 640 student contacts per growing season.

Finally, the garden serves as a community gathering space where people enjoy the atmosphere and beauty of the garden. We often see people taking a lunch break, enjoying a cup of coffee with a friend, or simply strolling slowly through the garden, admiring the beauty and reading the learning aids on their way to work or shop downtown.

The Kansas Avenue Learning Garden has grown into an inspiring and important learning space for our community. The funds raised on ioby will allow us to expand our educational reach and scope, as well as the beauty of the garden for all to enjoy.