Hello Awesome Foundation! I'm a documentary filmmaker that could not just walk away from the issues featured in my latest film Urban Roots.

Urban Roots call to action is to put farms in schools. Across the nation, schools cover large areas of land that are often covered in asphalt. This asphalt-covered land offers up a terrific opportunity to turn it into organic, food-producing land while also creating a valuable, outdoor classroom.

Currently, school budgets nationwide do not provide for this activity, so we are taking the lead. Urban Roots has partnered with Sarah Didvar-Saadi and Gina Gambill of The Green Schoolhouse, a Los Angeles-based school garden consulting and design build company, to create a pilot program to build school farms. We are calling these farms, “Field of Dreams”.
 
A Field of Dreams Farm is an outdoor classroom where High School students learn the sustainable practices of planting, composting and water con-servation to grow food with the highest organic nutritional value. Each school will experience the growth cycle of Seed to Harvest to Table. Students will take the message home that growing your own food is a simple and vital process.
 
Also, schools will have the opportunity to parti-cipate in their communities by growing food for their local community’s food banks and homeless shelters.

The Urban Roots/Field of Dreams pilot project starts in Los Angeles and soon after, Detroit. 
 
The five LAUSD High Schools in the pilot program have Environmental Academies within their curriculum. The following schools have been selected to receive funding for a Field of Dreams.
 
Alexander Hamilton High School
Global Studies Network Academy
 
Van Nuys High School
Academy of Health Careers, Nutrition, Culinary Arts
 
Phineas Banning High School
Global Environmental Science Academy
 
Roosevelt High School
Academy of Environmental and Social Policy
 
James A. Garfield High School
Green Architecture and Design Academy

For more info: www.urbanrootsaction.com