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Andover Public Schools | $20,750.00Andover, MA
A fruit and vegetable garden will be established in the new greenhouse located at the West Elementary School in Andover, MA. This project is designed to increase students' access to and familiarity with fresh fruits and vegetables. The garden will provide a dynamic, hands-on learning environment where teachers can enhance their curriculum with engaging lessons on gardening, nutrition, and healthy eating. The project will also include the addition of a compost tumbler and a water conservation station to support sustainability and environmental stewardship.
Beverly Children's Learning Center | $29,846.00Beverly, MA
Beverly Children's Learning Centers will enhance their highly impactful gardening program with an on-site greenhouse to further deepen the knowledge and skills of both educators and children. By extending their growing season, this project will enable them to cultivate multiple, abundant harvests throughout the year, providing students with a comprehensive understanding of the entire food cycle-from seed to harvest. This hands-on experience will reinforce key principles in sustainable agriculture, environmental stewardship, and healthy living. Additionally, it will allow them to expand their gardening curriculum to a year-round model, integrating seamlessly with their Nature-Based Curriculum, and fostering an even stronger connection between students and the natural world.
Boys & Girls Club of Greater Westfield | $30,000.00Westfield, MA
The Farm to Preschool project will benefit 60 preschoolers and their families in Westfield, MA by promoting healthy eating habits, food literacy, and connections to local agriculture. Through monthly cooking activities, seasonal taste tests, and meals featuring Massachusetts-grown produce, children will explore new foods in fun, hands-on ways. An indoor and outdoor preschool garden and visits to local farms will deepen students' understanding of where food comes from, while family events such as a farmers' market visit and a fall Pumpkin Fest will foster community-wide engagement in farm-to-preschool learning.
Chicopee Public Schools | $9,858.00Chicopee, MA
Chicopee Public Schools will purchase a Flex Farm to supply Bowie Elementary School's cafeteria with local lettuce and other produce. School staff and the district's Farm to School Coordinator will plan opportunities for teachers, students, and families to learn about hydroponics and taste the food grown on the Fork Farm. With guidance by a stipend staff member and support from non-profit partner, Green City Growers, Bowie Elementary students in 4th and 5th grade will help maintain the unit and assist with harvesting, all with the goal of growing 100 pounds of lettuce in year one.
Collegiate Charter School of Lowell | $28,987.00Lowell, MA
Collegiate Charter School of Lowell will launch its FRESH Start Initiative, expanding its "Wolf Gar-Den" into a hands-on learning hub for all K–12 students. This project will enrich the health curriculum with new garden-based lesson plans and immersive experiences like taste-testing, farm field trips, and a new garden club. In partnership with community experts like Mill City Grows, Massachusetts Farm to School and Parlee Farms, Collegiate Charter School of Lowell aims to cultivate lifelong healthy habits and deepen community connections for its staff, students and families.
Department of Youth Services | $14,642.00Boston, MA
The Department of Youth Services (DYS) aims to expand its Plant-to-Plate program across all state-operated sites, connecting youth to the food they eat-from planting and harvesting to preparing healthy meals. To support this expansion, DYS will first develop a comprehensive Plant-to-Plate Guide tailored to the unique needs of its programs and youth. This guide will draw on internal expertise and experience to reflect the realities of DYS settings. Next, DYS will provide training for key stakeholders—educators, facility and nutrition staff, vocational instructors, and health service professionals—who play a vital role in supporting youth health and wellbeing. Ultimately, the vision is to establish a sustainable, systemwide Plant-to-Plate program that enhances nutrition, builds healthy eating habits, instills the knowledge and skills required to grow one's own food, and supports lifelong wellness for youth across all eight state-operated sites.
Easthampton Public Schools | $29,063.00Easthampton, MA
Mountain View School will expand its successful PK–5 teaching garden by establishing a middle school production garden. This new garden will supply fresh fruits and vegetables to the school meal program and serve as a hands-on learning space for middle school students. The project integrates nutrition education with gardening through a collaborative curriculum developed by the health and garden teachers, using the texts Braiding Sweetgrass for Young Adults and Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. An afterschool garden internship will engage students in planting, tending, and harvesting crops for school meals.
Greater Lawrence Regional Vocational Technical | $30,000.00Andover, MA
Greater Lawrence Technical School will create a GLTS FRESH after school club which will integrate a living wall garden and composting system on campus. This project will provide students with hands-on experiences in growing food, understanding sustainable agriculture, and managing organic waste, while promoting health, environmental awareness, and cross-collaboration learning from three different shops within our school community.
Greater Lowell Family YMCA | $17,645.00Lowell, MA
The YMCA Roots & Wellness Project is a new Greater Lowell Family YMCA initiative that connects young children and their families to the local food system through hands-on gardening, nutrition education, and meaningful food experiences. The project weaves both indoor (hydroponic) and outdoor garden-based learning into the preschool curriculum, giving children the chance to plant, care for, and explore fresh fruits and vegetables while building healthy habits. Beyond the classroom, children will visit local farms and participate in activities that strengthen school-to-home connections around food and wellness. Meals and snacks featuring locally grown ingredients are served through the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), reinforcing nutrition lessons and supporting lifelong wellness.
Innovation Academy Charter School | $27,947.00Tyngsborough, MA
Innovation Academy Charter school will provide opportunities for student engagement in garden setup, growing, and harvesting as well as projects to create food from its school resources, like maple sugaring. Funding will be used to allow students to have interactive field trips with community partners to learn about the composting cycle and create a school-wide composting program. IACS wants to further engage its families and community by providing student grown spices and produce which can then be used in meals that families create for IACS's multicultural potluck dinner. To ensure that the school is creating meals that students will be moved to try, IACS will utilize grant funding to send its School Nutrition Director and Farm to School liaison to attend professional development at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference, and offer school nutrition professionals the opportunity to attend classes at The John C. Stalker Institute to learn new methods of preparing local produce.
Lowell Public Schools | $30,000.00Lowell, MA
Future Farmers is a collaborative farm-to-school initiative at Wang and Robinson Middle Schools designed to deepen student learning through hands-on gardening and food system education. Wang will construct new raised beds and refurbish its greenhouse to support year-round cultivation and immersive instruction in environmental science, nutrition, and sustainability. Robinson will rebuild its outdoor garden beds in partnership with Mill City Grows, incorporating culturally relevant crops and food justice education. Together, these efforts will increase access to local foods, foster healthy eating habits, and strengthen student and family connections to the local food system.
Lowell Community Charter School | $28,905.00Lowell, MA
The Lowell Community Charter School (LCCPS) and Mill City Grows (MCG) Agricultural Education Collaborative will focus on establishing and deepening students' connection to the local food system through education and community engagement. The collaborative will include monthly food tastings during lunch to increase students' awareness of and appreciation for new fruits and vegetables; an after-school agricultural club that will include instruction on nutrition and how it relates to overall health, field trips to the Mill City Grows farm and kitchen, growing vegetables in an indoor garden, cooking classes, and a culminating event for students in which students share their knowledge of what constitutes a healthy diet and lifestyle; and during-the-school-day classes on nutrition for students in grades Pre-K through First Grade.
Making Opportunity Count | $14,792.00Fitchburg, MA
Making Opportunity Count's Farm-to-School Partnership will strengthen community relationships between childcare centers and local food producers through experiential learning. Children and families will participate in field trips to farm locations as well as on-site workshops. Educators will receive professional development to connect these nature-based experiences to Creative Curriculum's intentional teaching strategies.
Merrimack Valley Young Men's Christian Association | $21,871.00Lawrence, MA
The Merrimack Valley YMCA's Early Childhood Programs will engage young learners in understanding the importance of farming and local food systems through hands-on garden activities, farm and food producer tours, and interactive "Meet the Chef" experiences for educators, early education youth and their parents. Educators receive professional development to integrate these experiential lessons into the classroom, fostering lifelong connections to healthy eating, sustainability, and community.
Morris Professional Child Care Services | $3,000.00Springfield, MA
Morris Professional Child Care Services, Inc will create an outdoor garden space. The garden will include growing fruits and vegetables, as well as herbs that grow well in the region. The raised beds and containers for the gardening will show the children the importance of growing their own food, and also the work that goes into doing so. Morris Professional Child Care Services also plans to take children on field trips that will include visiting local farms and community garden.
North Adams Public Schools | $30,000.00North Adams, MA
North Adams Public Schools (NAPS) will procure local produce to provide more scratch-cooked meals and encourage students to enjoy nutritious food options. By promoting local produce, NAPS will boost student consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables, purchase products grown by local farmers and more deeply connect schools to the farmers in their communities. This program also intends to strengthen existing relationships with local farmers and expand education to a) help students make informed food choices through increased food literacy, b) improve their diets by cultivating their interest in and enjoyment of fresh, local produce, and c) recognize the role local farms play in the community.
Old Rochester Public Schools | $30,000.00Mattapoisett, MA
Grow Education: Linking Gardens, Curriculum, Cafeterias and Communities for a Farm-to-School Approach to Health (Grow-FTS) is a collaborative initiative with many stakeholders, including Old Rochester Regional School District and MA Superintendency Union #55's food service, administration, faculty, students & families. The goal of the project is to work toward creating the foundational norm of healthy eating to support health & wellness. As eating habits develop when we are young, Grow-FTS & the food service department will use the school gardens as a launching pad to incorporate food nutrition lessons into every third-grade classroom across the school-system's three elementary schools and provide reinforcement through multiple avenues of learning and engagement while bringing the classroom learning back to the school cafeterias. Grow-FTS has developed a three-year plan that will allow them to build gardens, educate teachers & stakeholders, develop & implement nutrition/science curriculum, and build a school wide culture of health that will engage the elementary schools in all three of the school-system's towns.
Revere Public Schools | $30,000.00Revere, MA
Revere Public Schools seeks to launch a new farm to school initiative that integrates food literacy into health and academic curriculum across multiple grade levels. Through the development of engaging, standards-aligned lessons, experiential field trips to local farms, and professional development for educators, students will gain a deeper understanding of food systems, healthy eating, and local agriculture. The initiative will strengthen community partnerships, build the food literacy skills of our students, and complement the nutritious meals served and experiences provided through the district's Child Nutrition Program.
Springfield Public Schools | $28,859.00Springfield, MA
Springfield Public Schools (SPS) aims to strategically grow the capacity of its early childhood educators to integrate the school garden into classrooms through professional development leading to more students engaged with school gardens in alignment with our District Wellness Policy. SPS also will be sending more students and schools on farm field trips to a local farm that is a vendor of some of the district's produce served in school lunches, helping them to learn about the local food system and the value of fresh produce. Finally, with all elementary schools now having outdoor growing space, Springfield seeks to produce a "Food Safety in School Gardens and Classrooms" brochure created by the Food Services team for teachers who will be tasting produce and cooking with students that covers the importance of washing produce, proper storage, and handling of food items.
The Salvation Army Massachusetts Division | $4,880.00Cambridge, MA
Our Place will offer 8 new field trips for preschoolers to local farms and nature-focused programs like Wilson Farm, Cider Hill Farm, and Mass Audubon. These trips will give children ages 2–5 the chance to explore fields, greenhouses, and gardens while learning about where their food comes from and the importance of healthy eating. Through hands-on planting activities, they'll discover how fruits and vegetables grow, and they'll get to taste fresh, nutritious produce straight from the farm. With games, art projects, and up-close experiences with farm equipment, these trips are a fun and meaningful way to inspire curiosity, a love for nature, and an understanding of food and nutrition.
Warwick Public Schools | $24,400.00Warwick, MA
Based on its 25-acre woodland property, Warwick Community School (WCS)'s SPROUTS is a project and place- based food security learning initiative. Warwick Community School and District's mission seek to provide students with the skills to think critically and develop solutions for environmental and social justice challenges. Th SPROUTS initiative develops students' awareness specifically around social justice and environmental issues related to food security. This program engages students, staff and community members in learning about food production, sourcing, accessibility and sustainability through projects in the school's indoor growing space, kitchen, classrooms and outdoor gardens and grounds. SPROUTS will provide students and teachers the opportunity to build accessible garden beds and season-extending hoop houses, plant seeds and plant starts, harvest plants, and prepare healthy meals and menus highlighting homegrown produce. WCS is developing a curriculum aligned with Massachusetts standards to supplement classroom time with experiential time, helping students dig deep and root their learning.
Last Updated: January 20, 2026