Sprouts donation will help Tucson's school gardens program grow

The Arizona School Garden Workshop, a collaboration between the University of Arizona and Tucson Unified School District, is blossoming in midtown thanks to a major donation.

The workshop is expanding to Mansfeld Middle School, 1300 E. 6th St., and refurbishing two neighboring buildings owned by U of A.

One bungalow will be transformed into a community classroom; the other, a commercial kitchen. The yard will host a greenhouse and production garden.

The houses will be dubbed “The Sprouts House” in recognition of a Sprouts Health Communities Foundation donation to the program in the amount of more than $1 million. The cost to establish the Sprouts House is estimated at $2 million.

The School Garden Workshop already serves about 20 Tucson elementary schools and a network of more than 50 school-based gardens. These gardens offer experiential learning opportunities for students and sometimes contribute to school cafeterias.

It also serves U of A students as a place for school garden internships, as well as teachers looking to up their professional development or find curriculum ideas.

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The University of Arizona’s semester-long School Garden Workshop began in Fall 2011. The program trains U of A undergraduate students to work in K-12 schools, providing guidance and supporting teachers who are using school gardens as part of their regular classrooms. Each U of A intern spends about six to eight hours in TUSD schools, specifically.

The students help maintain the gardens and become well-versed in utilizing horticulture in the classroom — and daily life.

The latest addition, the Sprouts House, will provide on-hand weekly gardening and nutrition instruction for 800 middle school students. Annually, it will impact about 150 educators, 150 university students and more than 6,000 K-12 students.

“Our program has gained a lot of national attention and there has been demand for us to go out and do work with other school garden nonprofits around the country,” said Moses Thompson, who leads the School Garden Workshop. “Sprouts House will serve as a national training site during the school year.”

Last week, a formal event at the Sprouts House location at Mansfeld celebrated the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation donation and offered a tour of the germinating site. Later, Manzo Elementary School students conducted a tour of their own school garden.