In the spring of 2020 The Joseph School expanded the size of its garden, adding more types of vegetables, focusing on the orchard, and testing the soil. Now, almost a year later, our garden has provided many valuable experiences for our students and staff.

Education for Students

The garden began as an educational tool for our students. Gardening is a useful skill that teaches our students responsibility, decision making, team work, and how to use and care for their natural resources. Through their experience with the TJS garden, our students will know and understand the steps to create at-home gardens.

Education for Us

Furthermore, our garden is helping our team develop a seed library, for our specific terrain. The past year has allowed us to test various seeds and determine which can be harvested and replanted this year and for years to come. Our most successful crops have been coconuts, plantains and bananas, corn, watermelon, beans and sweet potatoes.

Healthy Minds

Beyond the educational benefits, gardening and producing our own food is financially advantageous. Our garden can provide hunger relief and necessary nutrients for our school of 180 students and staff of 50. Additionally, using the harvests from the garden promotes health and wellness by supplying our students with fresh, natural and unprocessed foods. The garden has already started to alleviate some of the costs associated with providing meals for the school; and we are excited by the prospect of growing our crop to not only provide for our school but the surrounding community as well.

Gardening is a great tool to teach our students hard-work, dedication and resourcefulness. We feel so blessed for the generosity of our donors who made this project possible. Be sure to check out our social media pages to catch updates and more photos from our garden.

If you would like to donate seeds or equipment for The Joseph School garden, please contact our Executive Director, Annita D’Amico at annitad@thejosephschool.org.