The Challenge

New York City’s School Gardens Initiative was established by The Mayor’s Fund and GrowNYC to inspire, facilitate and promote the creation of a sustainable school garden in each and every public school ’¨across the 5 boroughs. MRM’s ECD Cheryl Van Ooyen challenged me to help bring the new entity to life with branding and a website to educate teachers, facilitate donations, inspire supporters, recruit volunteers and enable schools to get involved via grants and special programs.

Services Provided:
Brand Identity
Brand Guidelines
Creative Direction
Website Design
Web Development
Project Management

The Results

The community has grown to support a network of 745+ schools in all 5 boroughs. In conjunction with Grow to Learn’s parent company Grow NYC they provide 66,000 children each year with programs that provide meaningful interaction with the natural environment.

From the Extensive Educational Resource Library to Grant and Application information, the online platform supports and encourages the healthy growth of the school garden community and our children’s future.

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Enabling, Educating & Empowering the Community

Providing the “know-how” to the school’s faculty was a primary goal of the effort. How to get started, getting funding, what types of crops to grow and so on. We developed an online platform providing training videos, toolkits and gardening curriculum for teachers and faculty. The resource library is chock-full of tips, guides, and helpful technical information to help the gardens and the student’s minds grow.

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Connecting & Building
the Community

Partners, corporate volunteers, community support and involvement were paramount to the initiative’s success. The site facilitates private and corporate donations and provides information on how to get involved in many different capacities.