The Healing and learning Garden Project

I lead the Mission Moms’ Committee, a group of long-time residents and Latina mothers in the Mission District, who organized and got together to mitigate the problems caused by the pandemic and the schools’ closures. Our families have been struggling and our children/youth are the most affected by the learning loss and emotional problems. As mothers we have seen the negative impact that prolonged confinement and exposure to screens have caused, including mental-health problems, loneliness, depression, and sadness. Without help from the school district, we had to find creative solutions, so we offered outdoor enrichment educational activities to our children. All parents have some skill to share, for instance one of the parents offered a music workshop four the kids at Parque del Sol once a week, we have had cooking and baking classes. We organize filed trips to farms, camping trips, etc.

Now we are organizing a healing garden workshop series. We were able to get access to a small bed at secret garden, a community garden in the Mission District. Moms have expressed interest in learning about medicinal herbs and planting them. We would love to learn together with our kids, and we decided we can organize a series of classes to learn about the planting/harvest process and learn about healthy nutrition, medicinal herbs and art activities as well other activities related to the gardening work.

We have seen from our experience how music and outdoors activities have helped our children’s mental health and well-being that a healing and learning garden program will help us to expand and bring more families to experience this learning community we are building in the Mission.

This grant would help us to initiate this project and fund these classes and activities.

I appreciate very much and thanks in advance your support to this project!