Love Cultivating Schoolyards

Youth run produce stand, youth internship program, youth led workshops, cafeteria composting program

Love Cultivating Schoolyards

Oakland Leaf envisions an Oakland community where schoolyards are transformed into dynamic learning environments for students, families, elders, educators, community organizations, and the city as a whole. Love Cultivating Schoolyards began with a school-based program and will grow to become a system-wide movement to improve student and family nutrition through classroom learning, promote school garden and landscape policy at district and city levels and generally promote a sustainable, ecologically-sound way of life.

At the roots of this initiative was the creation of a flagship garden at ASCEND, an east Oakland public school serving 264 students in grades kindergarten through eight. The ASCEND garden engages the support of an existing, well-organized parent community and includes contributions from parents, educators, community members and organizations. Ecology Instructor Matthew Linzner, students, and volunteers work together to cultivate living landscapes that serve a multiplicity of functions: as spaces for creative play; sites of experiments as outdoor, "living lab" classrooms; sources for food production; inspiration for curriculum development and opportunity for application; sanctuaries for after-school adult and adult education programs; and stages for community celebrations.

Our long-term aim is to establish an ecological community that develops an interconnected network of urban gardens to provide a local, secure, and ecological food-source for families while also catalyzing micro-enterprises based on the products yielded from these gardens (such as honey, salsa, and garden crafts) and improving the overall livelihood, health and vitality of east Oakland's densely-gridlocked flatlands communities.

LCS is based at ASCEND K-8 school in East Oakland. The program cultivates four gardens at the school site, growing fruits and vegetables, California natives, wildflowers and cultural plants. The program has since grown to two other garden sites: one at another middles school in East Oakland and the other at the Oakland Leaf community center. All gardens are open to community member participation where skills are shared to further enhance the development of the gardens.