2020 has been a challenging year, but a rebirth of gardening and food creativity is occurring. Food ED recognizes now more than ever we need to empower our communities to grow, learn, prepare, and sustain themselves where food and gardening are concerned. We collaborate with communities and schools to build and sustain vegetable and pollinator gardens, providing educational experiences and curriculum to build life long health and wellness. Our model champions STEAM outdoor education and innovative garden spaces often abandoned on LA campuses and community gardens. We bring a holistic lens on the food system from pollinators to compost and partner with students of all ages to help them lead healthier lives.  

Kristin Ritzau, Founder and Executive Director, & Giangelo Leos, Education Program Director, are uniquely qualified, ready, and willing to transform the arena of edible education. They have dedicated their lives to understanding the natural world and food systems in the US and are now ready to put roots down in their home community.  Together they are an amazing team already having helped found and launch the award-winning Monrovia Community Garden.

After Kristin launched Food ED in summer of 2020, Food ED now finds schools reaching out more and more. In the last four months alone, five schools have asked us to partner with them on garden curriculum and builds.  This area of LA is often neglected when it comes to garden and food education awareness. We desire to use gardens and our curriculum to help communities understand gardens can be so much more than spaces to just grow food. Collaborating with passionate educators, we are able to demonstrate gardens are tools to teach growth mindset, perseverance and wellbeing alongside Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math.

Our curriculum features:

• Grade specific Next Generation Science Standard lessons
• The latest scientific based research and hands-on learning
• Original arts and crafts and science experiments done safer-at-home or at school
• Food science and healthy living supplements

Our gardens showcase the latest in different growing methods, solar energy, and water collection in order to inspire the next generation of earth stewards and entrepreneurs. We are partnering with multiple schools in Monrovia Unified School District and others in the San Gabriel Valley.  We are building a pollinator garden outdoor space at Santa Fe Computer Magnet School. Plymouth Elementary is partnering with us on a number of projects including sensory garden and vegetable garden projects. Bradoaks and Monroe Elementary Schools are featuring our curriculum and we are helping with Bradoaks' Edible Education Garden revitalization too.  Together we are establishing spaces that will enrich the students' lives, but also the community-at-large. These spaces will inspire innovation and collaboration as it will help us further our world-class curriculum as well as be a model to surrounding areas of what outdoor learning can look like. 

Food ED difference:

• Raised vegetable beds with irrigation
• ADA raised beds for differently abled students
• Pollinator gardens showcasing whole ecosystem health
• Cooking and Food Science demonstrations
• Composting systems and worm bins
• Outdoor classroom and STEAM experiment space
• Hydroponic features
• Water magnet play boards
• Solar-powered generators
• Weather stations
• Reclaimed and recycled growing features
• Trees for additional shade

We are on the runway, but with your help, we can takeoff! The funding will help our educational curriculum development and current garden projects that are not fully funded in this first year of operation. By supporting staff and helping fund us as we develop our gardens with the features above, you are helping kids in the San Gabriel Valley learn about health and wellness, their environment, and how this type of science is useful to them for the duration of their lives. With your help, students will have access to these amazing spaces unparalleled in the San Gabriel Valley that will inspire, challenge and assist them in a life-long journey of health, wellness, and innovation. 

Thank you for joining us in this adventure! You truly are our partners in this work.