Garden Grant Update: Three Rivers Elementary School

Three Rivers Elementary School in Sunriver had a very unique idea for a school garden! Their goal was to create a school garden project that was manageable in size and scope, but still connected students to growing food. With assistance from our FoodCorps Service Member, Claire, the school designed and built three mobile indoor garden carts using donated shopping carts – complete with a ‘parking garage’ lighting system, soil and seeds, and a water catchment system.

Students have been actively involved in planting seeds in the starter trays, transplanting the garden starts to the mobile carts, and watering and monitoring the growth of plants in the mobile carts.

Over the next year, Three Rivers plans to start a new science curriculum called “Amplify,” which will utilize the garden carts in tandem with a unit on life sciences. They also want to encourage more classes to be involved, and rotate the carts among classrooms. We’re extra excited to learn that Three Rivers sees this project as a potential catalyst for launching a bigger, more permanent garden project in the future!