🍂October in the Garden

🍂Autumn on the Rooftop!

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Hello Friends,

October is National Farm 🌽to Table 🍴Month - a time to celebrate the connections happening between students and local food and farm. We believe healthy children create a better world and that the healthy habits they learn in the rooftop garden help to improve their overall health, focus and learning in the classroom.

Did you know kids spend over 1,200 hours per year in school? That is why it is so important to expose our students to a healthy lifestyle and healthy behaviors that helps them learn and thrive. When kids eat better and stay active they make healthier decisions.

You can help make this school year bloom by making a gift to our rooftop garden. Your gift helps ensure our students have the opportunity to learn through our garen programs. Make a gift today. We can't do this without your support.

Thank you for supporting our work and our SMART. HEALTHY. KIDS. 🍎

With Gratitude,

Stacey Barnes
Board Chair

New in the Garden

The garden is thriving and looking good! There is currently a new crop of late blooming sunflowers, Montauk daisies, gladiolas and ornamental sage. It has been a great time for harvesting as recent harvests include, collard greens, beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplant. Also, our students were able to harvest 7 lbs. of sweet potatoes during the after school program! 🍠

The Parent Program is Back!

The rooftop garden is in need of Kroger and Amazon gift cards to help re-launch our Parent Program this fall. The gift cards will go towards purchasing additional cooking and food supplies, and classroom materials needed for lessons during the winter. Any denomination is appreciated. To donate, please contact Ann Troyer or Julie Singer.

Butterflies in the Classroom!

Last month, we collected butterfly eggs and larvae from a Monarch butterfly sanctuary. Monarchs are the most well known North American butterflies and are an important pollinator species. The students were able to rear several Monarch caterpillars and learn about the beautiful life cycle of butterflies.

Catch & Release

After caring for our Monarchs through the several stages of their life cycle, the students helped tag and release the butterflies in our garden. Tagging the butterflies allows the students to keep track of the Monarchs released and their survival rate.

Check out more photos of our Monarch Program by clicking here.

Earth: The Apple of our Eye

In addition to harvesting, the students are learning about our global food supply for the future. The students dissected an apple, representing our Earth, to understand our planet only has a small percentage (<3%) of arable land to sustain our food supply in the future for our ever-growing population. We discussed sustainable farming practices and thought about alternative methods that can be used to grow our food, i.e. rooftops, hydroponics, aeroponics, etc. This lesson can lead to further discussions on environmental justice and if all countries have equitable amounts of land and resources to grow food for the future.

Join Our Garden Community

We are safely welcoming back volunteers in the rooftop garden. No garden experience is necessary. Volunteer opportunities include:

supporting students with school work
composting
planting seeds
pruning
weeding
tending to vegetable beds

Please contact Julie Singer, Volunteer Coordinator and Program Manager, to learn more!

Kroger Community Rewards

Supporting the rooftop garden is as easy as swiping your Kroger Plus Card or using your alternate ID at checkout!

Sign in or create an account at: http://www.kroger.com/communityrewards
Find Rothenberg Rooftop Garden or enter our organization number: TC592
Start swiping!

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Our mission is to enhance students’ development of critical thinking, science, math and literacy skills through hands-on application of classroom curriculum and increased community involvement in the Rothenberg Rooftop School Garden.