This holiday season we’re #SeedingTheFuture as we raise support for school gardens. Learn more on the value of this programming from Jenn Bonfili, Grow Pittsburgh board member and Managing Proprietor of B Gourmet.


Do you want to provide hope, confidence, and excitement for thousands of students in Pittsburgh?

In elementary school, as the child of a single parent, I was all too familiar with food insecurity. I recall standing in the school lunch line with my distinctively pink free lunch slip. Meal staples included powdered milk and canned vegetables. Fresh options were an infrequent luxury. I looked forward to the summer when my mother planted her garden. It meant much more than the fresh produce that was now on the table. The garden filled me with new hope and beginnings, providing choices at a time when it felt like I had so few.

Grow Pittsburgh currently supports 33 school gardens throughout Allegheny County, with plans to build another 25 gardens in schools by 2020. For the thousands of students that are learning to grow and cook their own food, these spaces provide so much more than a classroom experience. They are a place where kids can explore, dream, try new things, and build confidence. Gardens are a therapeutic space that can give students the opportunity to explore and be kids.

Jenn Bonfili in her mother’s garden

Won’t you join me in creating this experience for thousands of students in Pittsburgh? When you donate to Grow Pittsburgh’s School Garden Program, you provide opportunities for children to learn the joy of being outside in the garden, the reward of the harvest, and feeling of independence when they cook and taste the food they planted weeks or months before.

As a parent, board member of Grow Pittsburgh, and the Managing Proprietor of B Gourmet, I am thrilled to be involved with a program that strives to promote healthy lifestyles, engage students in environmental stewardship and their community, enhance academic programming, and instill a sense of wonder for the natural world.

For the students who may not have the option of a garden at home, or know what it is to have food choices, Grow Pittsburgh’s school gardens can help fill the gap, teaching care for and control of one’s food.

I can share that over 92% of students in this program tried a new food from the garden last school year, or that these students spent 11,645 hours outside, but the feeling that growing your own food inspires is what really makes this program special.

Today, my mother’s garden remains an important memory of my childhood. Won’t you help me in creating similar memories for these students? Your donation can provide the supplies necessary to facilitate experiential learning for students throughout our city. Join me in seeding the future of these students.

Give today. »