Cornell Cooperative Extension Community Horticulture

America the Beautiful Fund’s Operation Green Plant program is offering grants of FREE SEEDS (vegetable, flower, or herb) to encourage citizen efforts to protect and preserve America’s lands and resources. Shipping and handling fees for the first set of 100 seed packets is $14.95. Additional set(s) of 100 packets are available for $5 per set.

Click here for more details.

The Project Orange Thumb grant provides school and community gardening groups with tools and materials to help them achieve their goals for neighborhood beautification and horticultural education. Projects geared towards community involvement, neighborhood beautification, sustainable agriculture, and horticultural education are encouraged to apply. 20 grants are available providing up to  $1,500 in Fiskars garden tools and $800 in gardening-related materials. Visit www.projectorangethumb.com for application details.

Create a short video that completes the phrase “Real Food is…” and you can win $1,000 for your school food project. Sponsored by the Community Food Security Coalition and Action for Healthy Kids. Deadline: February 8.
http://farmtocafeteriaconference.com/real-food-is-video-contest/

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) is pleased to announce a new call for proposals (CFP) for Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities, a national program whose primary goal is to implement healthy eating and active living policy- and environmental-change initiatives that can support healthier communities for children and families across the United States. The program places special emphasis on reaching children at highest risk for obesity on the basis of race/ethnicity, income and/or geographic location.

Under this CFP, RWJF will award approximately 60 grants to community partnerships across the United States, each of which will receive up to $360,000 total over four years. All grantees must secure a cash and/or in-kind match equal to at least 50 percent of the RWJF award over the entire grant period.

Partnerships from all states are encouraged to apply. The Foundation will, however, give special consideration to proposals from 15 states where rates of childhood obesity are particularly high: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. Approximately half of the grants under this CFP will be awarded to communities within these states.

The deadline for brief proposals is February 3, 2009 at 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. All proposals must be submitted electronically through the RWJF Grantmaking Online system.

Go to www.healthykidshealthycommunities.org to download a copy of the CFP, review frequently asked questions (FAQs), register for an applicant conference call, and access the RWJF Grantmaking Online system.

Thank you for your interest in this important initiative to improve the health of our nation’s children.

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Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The national program office is housed at Active Living By Design, which is part of the North Carolina Institute for Public Health at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. Active Living By Design creates community-led change by working with local and national partners to build a culture of active living and healthy eating. Established in 2001 as a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Active Living By Design now serves funders and community partnerships across the nation.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to improving the health and health care of all Americans, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, meaningful and timely change. For more than 35 years the Foundation has brought experience, commitment, and a rigorous, balanced approach to the problems that affect the health and health care of those it serves. Helping Americans lead healthier lives and get the care they need—the Foundation expects to make a difference in our lifetime. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.

Gardening  projects especially community-based or food gardening may be good candidates for funding.

Established with the goal of creating a positive, long-lasting impact on the communities BJ’s serves, the mission of BJ’s Charitable Foundation is to enhance and enrich community programs that primarily benefit children and families. BJ’s Charitable Foundation funds projects in communities where there is a BJ’s Club, for store locations see http://www.bjs.com/locations/

The majority of BJs Charitable Foundation is focused on organizations that:

• Promote the safety, security and well-being of children and families
• Support education and health programs
• Provide community service opportunities
• Aid in hunger and disaster relief

For more information see http://www.bjs.com/about/community/charity.shtml

Good Afternoon!

I am very pleased to announce that the 2008-2009 applications for the Kids Growing Food and Bluebird mini grants are now available on our website (www.nyaged.org/aitc).  The deadline for both of these grants is Friday November 28th, 2008 and recipients will be announced by the end of January.

We are also working on completing the applications for the NEW  Kids Growing Food II: Continuation Grant, which will be available to educators who have previously received a KGF mini grant and the AITC Teacher of the Year Application.  We hope to have these applications up on the site by early October.  I will make sure to send out an announcement when they become available.

Please pass this announcement along, we are extremely excited to add to our list of grant recipients and welcome all applications!

If you have any questions regarding the grant process please feel free to contact me by phone or email.

Sincerely,
–

Heather Davis

Interim Coordinator

NY Ag in the Classroom

106 Kennedy Hall

Cornell University

Ithaca, NY 14853

(p) 607-255-9253

(f) 607-255-7905

hed24@cornell.edu

Deadline: October 31, 2008
Project Learning Tree® (PLT) awarded 24 GreenWorks! grants to schools and organizations across the country to involve students in community-based environmental projects. GreenWorks! is PLT’s service-learning program that engages PLT educators and their students with their local community in “learning-by-doing” neighborhood improvement projects. Since 1992, PLT has distributed over $565,000 to fund 810 grant projects in communities across the country. Proposals for the Fall 2008 cycle of grants are due on October 31, 2008. Grants up to $5,000 are available.

http://eelink.net/cgi-bin/ee-link/newclick/8913560

Love Your Veggies grant program is awarding $15,000 grants to 10 elementary schools across the country. Applications are now available online at  www.LoveYourVeggiesGrants.org through the November 7 deadline!

Grant awards will be based on proposals that demonstrate need, sustainability, innovation and potential for community involvement. Funding must be spent on any of the following:

• Fresh produce (vegetables and fruits)
• A vegetable station (such as a dedicated salad bar)
• Kitchen equipment (primary usage must relate to proposed program)
• Program staffing (cafeteria personnel, lunchroom staff, etc.)
• Nutrition education supplies
• Food safety training

www.LoveYourVeggiesGrants.org

Deadline: November 1, 2008

National Gardening Association and Home Depot Announce 2009 Youth Garden Grants Program

The National Gardening Association has announced that Home Depot will return as the Youth Garden Grants sponsor for 2009.

NGA awards Youth Garden Grants to schools and community organizations with child-centered garden programs. In evaluating grant applications, priority will be given to programs that emphasize one or more of the following elements: educational focus or curricular/program integration; nutrition or plant-to-food connections; environmental awareness/education; entrepreneurship; and social aspects of gardening such as leadership development, team building, community support, or service-learning.

Schools, youth groups, community centers, camps, clubs, treatment facilities, and intergenerational groups in the United States are eligible. Applicants must plan to garden with at least fifteen children between the ages of 3 and 18. Previous Youth Garden Grant winners who wish to reapply may do so but must wait a year (e.g., if an organization won in 2008, it can apply again in 2010) and have significantly expanded their garden programs.

For the 2009 grant cycle, 125 grants are available. Packages are as follows: five programs will receive gift cards valued at $1,000 (a $500 gift card to Home Depot and a $500 gift card to the Gardening with Kids catalog and store) and educational materials from NGA; seventy programs will receive a $500 gift card to Home Depot and educational materials from NGA; and fifty programs will receive a $250 gift card to Home Depot and educational materials from NGA. Each award package also includes twelve months of NGA Supporter benefits.

Visit the NGA’s Kidsgardening Web site for complete program information.

Supporting Awareness of Nutrition and Hunger

Statistics show that in many U.S. classrooms you’ll find children who are overweight sitting
next to others wondering where their next meal will come from; many are not getting the right
balance of nutrients in their diets or enough exercise. Research conducted at Texas A&M
University supports the connection between kids’ food gardens and improved nutrition. Could a
school garden be part of the solution to the diet- and exercise-related challenges children
face? Many forward-thinking educators and parents think so, and have worked to create youth
garden programs that focus on nutrition and hunger issues.

As a way to encourage the growth of health-focused youth gardens, NGA recognizes outstanding
programs via the Healthy Sprouts Awards, sponsored by Gardener’s Supply Company. These awards
support school and youth garden programs that teach about nutrition and the issue of hunger in
the United States.

CCE educators here’s yet another reason to partner with your nutrition collegues

To be eligible for the 2008 Healthy Sprouts Awards, your school or organization must plan to garden in 2009 with at least 15 children between the ages of 3 and 18. The selection of winners is based on the demonstrated relationship between the garden program and nutrition and hunger issues in the United States.
This year NGA will present awards to 20 schools or organizations.

Applications must be postmarked no later than October 15, 2008. DOWNLOAD AN APPLICATION