Eco-tip: Nonprofit provides eco-education during orders to stay at home
Ventura, California (April 11, 2020) - Thousands of local parents struggling to provide educational material for their stir-crazy students are appreciating the help of a local nonprofit.
Founded in 2008, Students for Eco-Education and Agriculture normally helps students understand the origins of their food and focuses on agricultural education programming. SEEAG provides schools with classroom agricultural education and free field trips to farms.
During this time, the organization has instead focused on providing online learning and assistance with education through home gardening.
“We’re still trying to help kids understand where their food comes from and use that knowledge to make healthy food choices,” said Mary Maranville, the nonprofit's founder and CEO. “We just had to focus on new opportunities.”
Last week, in partnership with The Plant Good Seed Company in Ojai, SEEAG mailed seed packets to people in over 300 households who responded to an article in its newsletter.
The week before, coordinated through a similar newsletter promotion, SEEAG worked in partnership with Oxnard-based Agromin to distribute nearly 500 bags of potting soil.
Additional sponsored giveaways are possible soon, as are prizes for competitions. For example, SEEAG will soon launch an essay contest, with entries due later this month. At least one student writing on the topic “What Earth Day means to me” will win a lemon tree.
At 2 p.m. Thursday, SEEAG will present a webinar, featuring Dr. Rose Hayden-Smith, a gardening expert who helped the Obama presidential administration establish a White House-based home gardening program. She will provide a lively lesson on the history of Victory Gardens.
“Let’s Grow a Garden 2020” initiative provides online resources and new lessons will be posted every Monday through summer. Topics include how to plant an outdoor vegetable garden or indoor container garden and how to select the right plants and soil. The site also provides information about local agriculture and links to where families can order seeds and gardening materials online.
Based on local sales of plants, seeds, and soil, gardening seems to be a popular activity while people are being asked to stay at home and as parents must design “at-home student learning” programs.
Quin Shakra, who owns and manages The Plant Good Seed Company, reports, “I am working hard to catch up and meet this demand. I have delisted over half the catalog for active sale because I have needed to emphasize swiftly moving orders for staple garden varieties.”
Shakra has heard his colleagues in the gardening supply business are also struggling to keep up and says other “stores in the region – Green Thumb Nursery, Meiners Oaks Nursery, Flora Gardens and (others) are due for restocks this week.”
Go to the SEEAG website to subscribe to their weekly newsletter. The newsletter’s popularity attests to its relevance in this time of crisis.
Maranville’s electronic tracking tools tell her out of 5,000 newsletters she emailed to people who have asked to be on her list, the newsletter had 2,400 “opens” – instances where people receiving a transmitting email clicked on and opened the attached newsletter.
Additionally, Maranville’s postings of the newsletter on social media platforms have garnered dozens of “shares,” sending it to hundreds of others via users’ social media newsfeeds.
Expansion of SEEAG’s influence is growing, as 240 new email addresses signed on this week for free subscriptions. The newsletter “features fun and engaging lessons designed to connect students to agriculture, food and the importance of nutritional well-being.”
For more information, visit www.seeag.org/signup.
Author: David Goldstein
Source: VC Star