National Nonprofit Aims To Put Gardens In 100 Detroit Schools
BIg Green
Kimbal Musk, co-founder and CEO, Big Green, stands in a learning garden in Indianapolis.
National Nonprofit Aims To Put Gardens In 100 Detroit Schools
Big Green, run by brother of Elon Musk, promotes science education, healthy eating
January 17, 2018, By SHERRI WELCH
- Big Green to bring 100 learning garden classrooms to metro Detroit as part of $5 million commitment
- Kimbal Musk, who with brother Elon sold company that later became PayPal, is champion behind the gardens
- $2 million raised so far for project
A national nonprofit run by the brother of serial entrepreneur Elon Musk aims to bring food education and outdoor "learning garden" classrooms to more than 100 metro Detroit schools as part of a $5 million plan to connect the city's youth to real food.
The gardens created by Boulder, Colo.-based Big Green are intended to support science lessons taught through the growing of food. The idea is to help kids increase their preference for nutritious foods, develop healthier responses to stress and improve their academic performance, said co-founder and CEO Kimbal Musk, who with his brother Elon developed and sold for $300 million the company that is now PayPal Holdings Inc.
Kimbal Musk went on to open Kitchen restaurant in Boulder, a farm-to-table restaurant, in 2004, and for the next dozen years helped local farmers scale their businesses to meet the growing demand of his restaurant group, The Kitchen Cafe LLC.
He also founded the Kitchen Community — now known as Big Green — after seeing how school gardens can help kids.
Since 2011, it has created learning garden classrooms, with raised beds planted with fruits and vegetables and student seating areas, in Denver, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Chicago, serving about 250,000 students.
The metro Detroit project, which happened with encouragement from the Pathways Foundation, Musk said, has raised $2 million to date from Pathways; Grand Rapids-based Gordon Food Service; Carol Ilitch, a mediator at Oakland Mediation and the daughter of Little Caesars founders Mike and Marian Ilitch; and others.
The effort will target Detroit, elsewhere in Wayne County and nearby low-income, underserved schools, Kimbal Musk said.
"We have stopped educating our kids about real food for a couple of decades now, and the results have been disastrous, rampant diabetes ... and in some neighborhoods, over 40 percent of kindergarteners go into kindergarten obese," he said.
"It's not something they did to themselves. It's what we did to them, and we now need to fix it."
Big Green has named Ken Elkins, who served as COO of Winning Futures since 2013, as regional director for Detroit. He will be charged with hiring three teachers who will serve as garden educators and assist teachers with lesson planning, and three local landscapers to build and maintain the gardens.
Elkins also will be charged with raising the remaining $2.5 million to $3 million for the project.
The $5 million will fund the construction and planting of the first 100 learning gardens. The Detroit branch will then need to raise about $1 million a year afterward to maintain the teacher training and gardens, Musk said.
Big Green will work initially with the Grand Valley State University charter school network, given the interest it has shown in the learning gardens, Musk said.
The university charters 41 schools throughout metro Detroit, according to its website.
"We expect at some point to work with Detroit Public Schools Community District, as well," Musk said.
The nonprofit plans to build its first learning garden in April and to have 100 in place within 2 1/2 years, Musk said. "Will be moving very fast."
Big Green looks to build on the urban agriculture, community garden and school garden projects sprouting around Detroit.
School gardens have shown to be a powerful tool to improve test scores, Musk said.
"If you teach the exact same science lesson in fifth grade in the classroom and then move it out to the garden, you'll get a 15-point increase in test scores for those who had the outdoor lesson. It's so much more powerful than learning in the classroom."
As for the produce that's grown, many schools choose to do a farmers market, selling it to parents. Others incorporate it into the cafeteria menu so students can eat the food they've grown, he said.
Given that the gardens go in schools in low-income communities, "we also encourage people to eat food right out of the garden," Musk said.