Children prefer hands-on learning, and school gardens combine environmental science, fresh-air exercise, nutritional learning (you eat what you grow), and fun. You can help raise money to start a garden or some other needed program for a school with a holiday fundraiser that sells SchoolGardenCo's handmade herbal lotions and soaps. They'll split the sales with your school or charity 50/50. For how-to's on starting school gardens, see Resources, below.

Or, you can help by simply buying School Garden Co's products as gifts, because they give all their after-tax profits to school garden programs. Even indoor gardeners get dry, chapped hands, especially in winter, and the most comforting salve we've found is their Hand Help, an opulent lotion with a just-right texture (not too hard, nor too oily) made of beeswax and olive, rosemary, lavender and calendula oils, $12 for a bright rose 2-oz. tin. A little goes a long way. School Garden Co. also makes a Hand Healer  with yarrow, comfrey and sage, and chapstick, bath salts, bar soaps; see their gift box.  

Holiday dishwashers will deeply appreciate the Gardener's Carrot Salve ($5.99) from Purple Prairie Botanicals, which uses organic beeswax, olive and coconut oil, as well as carrot and other plant oils. With no petrochemicals in any of their made-in-Minnesota products, Purple Prairie is a signatory of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics pledge to rid products of toxic ingredients. Can't resist PP's Carrot Rose face cream, perfectly pure and only $6.99 for 2 oz. 

Resources: It's never too early to plan a garden. Below are some tips and info.

*At Ecoliteracy, your school can get a free book on designing a school garden.

*Click here for how to get grants and raise funds.

*California School Garden Network provides a plethora of info and links. So does the Arts & Ecology Center in Sonoma Valley CA.

*Competitive colleges, take heed: Yale's sustainable food system includes an organic farm that that supplies its dorm dining halls.

Posted by Mindy Pennybacker on Dec 1, 2008 at 4:50 PM
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