The Community & School Garden Development Institute (CSGDI) is a series of practical and hands on sessions for groups interested in starting and maintaining organic gardens in community settings. The Institute will cover key aspects of developing and sustaining gardens, emphasizing how garden teams can effectively plan, start and maintain a community garden. Sessions will only briefly touch on horticultural skills outside of basic garden design. Growing Hope will stay in contact with graduates of CSGDI to offer assistance in the construction of the garden. These garden stewards are responsible for the management of their own community garden.

Institute sessions will cover information on how to start and sustain community gardens, including:

Developing SMART goals

Group leadership

Site design and garden construction

Asset-based community organizing

Recruiting community involvement

To qualify for the Institute interested groups must have at least 5 dedicated garden team members, at least 3 of whom must attend all five Institute sessions. Meeting once a week, each session runs for three hours and includes highly interactive group activities that will facilitate the garden planning process. We welcome any group such as neighborhood or community groups, faith-based organizations, non-profit agencies or service clubs, schools, groups of neighbors, or businesses.

We look forward to getting in touch with existing and past community garden partners to better expand our programming this year. CSGDI is responsible for starting over thirty gardens in Washtenaw County and we are excited to empower even more community members to get involved! Participants of the most recent CSGDI which ran from January to February of 2009 include:

CSTS: Community and Support Treatment Services
Trinity Episcopal Church
Ann Arbor Learning Community
Ann Arbor Preschool
YHC: Ypsilanti Housing Commission
St. Andrews Episcopal Church

The next Community and School Garden Institute will start January 21, 2010 from 6:30PM-8:30PM and meet every Thursday until February 18. The January 1st deadline is coming up fast!

Please contact Growing Hope if you are interested in participating and fill out an application online! Please, get in touch by emailing us at info@growinghope.net, by calling Growing Hope at (734) 786-8401 or stopping by the Growing Hope booth at the Downtown Ypsilanti Farmers Market!