Welcome to the @growportland 🥬⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ As partof @fiskars’s #ProjectOrangeThumb program, I visited Portland work with an elementary school garden. School gardens like this play a huge role in fighting food insecurity AND educating the next generation about growing, and Grow Portland’s mission is to facilitate hands-on garden experiences that foster connections to food, nature and each other.⁣⁣⁣⁣ Here are some of the highlights:⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Grow Portland teaches hands-on garden education programs during the school day to over 5,2000 students across 13 public elementary schools. Most of the schools are title 1 and represent low income students from immigrant and refugee communities where food insecurity is highest 🍅⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ Throughout the pandemic, they harvested over 4,000 pounds of food for the school cafeterias and food pantries. This was especially important for families and students that relied on school lunch programs 🍽⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ During my visit, I was fortunate enough to shadow two classes. Both went out into the garden as part of their school day curriculum and had the opportunity to harvest from the pollinator garden. The older students made bouquets while the kindergartners made little pollinator bracelets 🥹⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Grow Portland will use their $10,000 donation from Fiskars to provide these safe, green space experiences for even more students, and I am so grateful to Fiskars for helping support such an incredible organization 🙏⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ Hit up my stories to see more of my school visit 👀⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ BTW - For full transparency, I am not paid for these Project Orange Thumb features so that more can be given to each garden⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ 😊⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣ ⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ .⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣ #FarmerNick #getyourhandsdirty #farmtotable #growsomethinggreen #growyourownfood #urbanfarming #greenthumb #organicgardening #backyardgarden #urbanagriculture #localfood #apartmentfarming #gardenersunited #plants #garden #fiskars