School Garden Programs
Slow Food Solano awards grants to schools within Solano County to assist them in starting and maintaining a school garden. For more information visit our Grant Application page. Grant Recipients for 2013 have been announced! Congratulations to all the schools selected to receive grants for 2013. See the complete list on our grants page. And thank you to the community, and especially NorthBay HealthCare, for your support that allowed us to contribute to many more school garden projects this year!
Many other local resources are available to help Solano County schools. Do you have expertise or materials to offer? Contact us and we'll be happy to include you on this list.
FREE SEEDS, RED WORMS and FERTILIZED CHICK EGGS
Rita LeRoy is the director of Loma Vista Farm in Vallejo, which is an educational
school farm. Most of the 18,000 visitors a year come from schools from
Vallejo to Vacaville. She has seeds available for
teachers. Call 707.556.8765 or email rkleroy@yahoo.com to let her know what
you could use for school gardens, science projects, even bean collages. Free
fertilized chick eggs are available for incubation projects, and free red
worms for composting.
MASTER GARDENERS
To connect with a master gardener, call Solano County's UC Cooperative Extension. Jennifer Baumbach, Master Gardener Program Coordinator, will do her best to pair you with a Master Gardener volunteer who can consult on your school garden.
707.784.1321
jmbaumbach@ucdavis.edu.
TEACHER RESOURCES
Loma Vista Farm has a valuable section on teacher resources that includes some lesson plans for agriculture in the classroom that are downloadable and aligned with California state standards. Loma Vista also offers free gardening workshops about 8 times a year. Classes are two hours on a Saturday, and cover a range of topics. More info is available on line.
MANURE, UNSEXED CHICKENS, AND LAYING HENS
Steer, chicken or horse manure is available.
Unsexed chickens are $2 and laying hens are $20.
Contact Sue Chan DVM for details and arrangements.
CETA Foundation/Phoenix Ranch
5046 Midway Rd, Vacaville
(707) 678-0580
AN INTERESTING FUNDING SOURCE
DonorsChoose.org - This nonprofit was started by a Bronx school teacher who wanted public school teachers to be able to fund projects and experiences for their students that were not funded through school district allocations. The website connects individuals directly with classrooms in need, and the site accepts small contributions as well as large. This is ideal for a school garden project.