Meet OGC Mission Fund Recipient: Growing Gardens
Growing Gardens works to improve our food system, community health and wellness, and soil health using gardening as their tool.
“All our work and education are based in organic growing practices, because the health and wellness of the soil directly impact your health and wellness,” shared Growing Garden’s Executive Director Jason Skipton. “This delicate dynamic between how you treat your soil and your plants is a reflection on how your body will be treated and react in return.”
Growing Gardens has multiple important programs:
Home gardens: Garden education, resources and mentorship. They work with 300 – 500 families every year with a goal of reducing as many barriers as possible to growing food. Each family benefits from a three-year partnership with Growing Gardens that includes soil testing, site visits, seeds, plants, tools, education and connections to community organizers.
Youth Grow: Gardening to learn about nature, nutrition and food system sustainability. They work in 10 Title I elementary schools where they get kids outside and teach them about soil health, organic farming and agriculture. Then they bring that produce back into schools so that kids can try all the vegetables they’ve grown.
School Garden Coordinator Certificate Training: Online learning program, offered three times per year, open to anyone in the world who wants to learn how to start and build a school garden in their community.
Lettuce Grow: Hands-on garden-based education for currently incarcerated folks in 14 different correctional facilities across the state. In total, they grow about 23 acres of fruits and vegetables which yields about 325,000 pounds of produce that then goes back into correctional facility kitchens. This program triples the amount of time that currently incarcerated individuals get outdoors.
Decentralized Community Greenhouse Project. They have five small greenhouses and one large industrial greenhouse spread across the Portland metro area. So far this year, they’ve grown 50,000 plant starts for people to use.
In 2025, OGC gave Growing Gardens a Mission Fund grant. “We're at this dangerous crossroads that if we don't invest more in food system work, then it's going to crumble at a time where it's needed the most. We need to figure out how to continue to cultivate relationships throughout the food system; from farmers to community to food industry,” stated Jason. “Our biggest expense across the board is getting more staff time in correctional facilities, at schools, as community organizers and in the field. Your grant helps us to enact our vision and mission by investing in our people.”
OGC’s Mission Fund Grant Program promotes equity in the food system, increases access to organic food and more. Growing Gardens is just one of many organizations the Mission Fund supported in 2025. Find the complete list of grant recipients here. To learn more, and to donate to Growing Gardens, click here.
