Three Companies Come Together to Grant a BIG Wish for Granny's Garden School
Loveland, Ohio - Working with private funds to teach over 1,700 Loveland students per year in over 100 gardens, Roberta Paolo's big wish for 2013 is to raise dollars required to hire more Garden Coordinators to accomplish the Granny’s Garden School (GGS) vision for next year. Now in her tenth year, Paolo relies on 15-20 separate fund raising programs per year year to cover all the garden costs.
To help grant Paolo’s big wish, the 125 year old family owned Faultless Bon Ami Company in Kansas City, donated over 5,000 Garden Claws.
"It was instant and totally amazing,” said Paolo, Founder and Director of Granny's Garden School. "Web Thompson, Vice President of the company, took my call and in minutes saw the local and national vision of what we have built. Mr. Thompson organized twenty-six pallets of product for immediate pick up.”
"When Roberta explained what she had been doing the last ten years, I wanted to create a way to support her efforts," Thompson said. “When she told me that her favorite tool in her program was our Garden Claw, she had me.”
That was only the beginning because the claws needed to get to Loveland. Total Quality Logistics, a local Cincinnati shipping logistics firm, then jumped in to organize the shipment. "Andrew Kennedy really came to the rescue. Within 24 hours they had the total shipment set up and on its way,” said Jeff Wiebell, a GGS Board Member. “We had one more challenge and Ripple Junction Founder Neil Hoynes offered up warehouse space to take the 26 pallets."
Roberta's big wish is now in phase two - getting the word out to everyone that she has all these Garden Claws.
These LOVELAND MAGAZINE HD VIDEOS were shot to tell the Garden Claw story and how you can have one or two of them for your home garden, or give them for Christmas gifts.
Go here for ordering information.
Granny’s Garden School is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit organization, founded by a grandmother with the simple desire to give kids the chance to pick flowers, Granny's Garden School now runs one of the largest and most comprehensive school garden programs in the country - that has set the standard for merging school gardens with the classroom.
They collaborate with the public school district in Loveland, Ohio to offer hands-on learning opportunities. The 24-acre shared campus of the Loveland Primary and Elementary Schools has been transformed into more than 100 vegetable gardens, loads of flower gardens, a 3/4 mile nature trail, and an apple orchard. They use these resources to provide a standards aligned, plant-based environmental education to the more than 1,700 first through fourth grade students that attend the two schools. The produce is enjoyed by the students as they work in the gardens, it is served in the cafeteria, and shared with the community in various ways.
The garden program receives no funding from the Loveland School District.
They also use their ten years of experience to guide and support other school garden developers around the country in creating their own programs through the Schoolyard Nature Network.
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