Projects
We are now working on several sites in Takoma Park: three at Montgomery College and one at Takoma Park Elementary School. We’re in discussions with the County for an additional site.
By integrating these food gardens into the life of these schools, we will reconnect students with the land and soil, and help them learn how to be good stewards of our planet. The edible gardens will also provide an additional source of food for the schools' pantries, addressing the high rate of food insecurity among students.
We are also exploring other sites while working with private landowners to help them grow and maintain food forests on their land, using permaculture design principles and native plants. If you know of a site that might work or you’d like help in your backyard, then please reach out to us via our CONTACT PAGE.
We want all these spaces to become places of learning, play, decision-making and joy while providing free, nutrient-dense food to the community in a way that enhances biodiversity, tackles stormwater problems, and mitigates the climate crisis.
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Takoma Park Elementary Food Forest
We are building a mini food forest at Takoma Park Elementary School (TPES). The food forest will be incorporated into the school’s curriculum in a way that increases the environmental literacy of the school’s students.
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Montgomery College Food Forest
The project will initially establish a food forest at the Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus of Montgomery College at the corner of Philadelphia and Chicago Avenues. The food forest will nurture a deeper understanding of food production and food sovereignty, engaging students in the planting and stewardship of the food forest. It will also become a sustainable source of food for the college's student population, which suffers high levels of food insecurity. And it will become a space for community and college engagement, recreation and education. Two additional areas on the campus will be developed in the years ahead.
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TPES Garden Club
As part of our efforts to create a food forest at the Takoma Park Elementary School, we installed raised beds and established an after school gardening club. It is being used to teach students at TPES how to grow and harvest food. The club was so popular in its first year that we are expanding it so that more students in each grade can participate and get a chance to learn how to sow seeds, tend seedlings, maintain the beds and harvest the produce.
This project was made possible through the kind support of the City of Takoma Park, for which we are deeply grateful.