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Scout Project Ideas

At America’s Grow-a-Row, we hope to instill in our kids a desire to serve those in need, and we want to do our part to help today’s youth develop into a caring and responsible future generation. America’s Grow-a-Row challenges our young volunteers to spend hours nurturing fields of produce, only to give it away to those who need it more. Our program encourages youth to work together as a team to achieve ambitious goals for the good of society.

We would like to suggest a few projects that should fulfill requirements for various scout awards while helping us feed the hungry. Of course, your ideas are very welcome! This is really meant to get the wheels turning. The only thing we ask is that you come to us for approval of the project so that we can provide the resources you need to be successful. Also, we want to be sure that if it is an ongoing project, we have the resources to sustain it.

Some Ideas to Consider…

  1. Start a community garden in a low-income area that can be maintained by local residents.
  2. Find a farm that will allow volunteers to glean produce that would normally be plowed under and start an America’s Grow-a-Row gleaning program there.
  3. Find land at your school or church and, with proper approvals, use it to start your own donation garden.
  4. Build educational materials to teach kids about hunger and poverty.
  5. Build raised beds that can be donated to a low-income housing complex, senior center, or handicapped individual for use in growing their own fresh produce.
  6. Get to know a local food pantry or soup kitchen and write a report about whether fresh produce is available and what types of produce recipients would like. Include recipes for cooking those types of produce on a strict budget.
  7. Survey various local feeding agencies and create a table of information on what needs they have and how we can do a better job of helping them to feed the hungry.
  8. Help a group home or shelter dig out an area for a small vegetable garden so they can grow produce for themselves.
  9. Contribute to our website with fun facts and ways to help feed the hungry.
  10. Talk to a grocery store about rescuing their “not quite retail perfect” produce, and organize a volunteer network to pick it up and deliver it to a local food pantry.
  11. Set up a delivery of fresh produce to shut-ins.
  12. Build a storage shed for gardening equipment.
  13. Use a commercial kitchen to bake or cook using excess produce for donation to food pantries. (For example, extra apples can be made into applesauce.)

Contact: Tristan Wallack at tristan@americasgrowarow.org