Biographical Info

Areas We Address

A day school would engage with us if they are looking to develop or enhance:

• Experiential Jewish and environmental educational opportunities on their campus through a GrowTorah garden program. The experience will help participants explore relevant Jewish values and Torah lessons, and learn the fundamentals of gardening and land stewardship.
• The Torah lessons interwoven with the educational garden experiences inspire participants to navigate the complex relationships between humans, their fellow creatures, and the earth, and encourage participants to connect with these values in powerful and personally meaningful ways.

Expected Outcomes

Working with us, a school should expect to accomplish:

• Creating a confident educator who is empowered to teach this program
• Developing students who are engaged in hands on learning and growing
• Cultivating a garden that will grow vegetables, herbs and flowers whose weekly parsha lessons are a powerful way to connect with Hashem and the world.

Key Activities

We help schools achieve their goals by implementing the following:

• GrowTorah trains 1–2 school staff in our pedagogical approach, basic school garden skills, and the logistics of the whole program at an immersive training on a farm.
• Throughout the year, the GrowTorah team provides a bi-weekly coaching session to support the educator(s) in lesson planning, garden management, and overall program success.
• All Anafim educators will participate in monthly cohort-wide Professional Development workshops. These workshops include updates from all programs across North America, as well as a seasonal program focus.
• A cohort wide chat allows for regular idea sharing between educators at different schools

Setting Expectations

To ensure the impact of our support, we expect schools to:

• Meet with us regularly for coaching and updates
• Use and interact with resources that we provide
• Have a GrowTorah team member visit the school once a year to observe the educator and provide constructive feedback on their teaching, use of resources, efficiency of space use and more.

To ensure the impact of our support, we expect administrators to:

• Meet with GrowTorah 3x a year to discuss satisfaction, improvements and the overall program
• Select an educator who is a suitable match for the role

To ensure the impact of our support, we expect classroom teachers to:

• Respect the process of the educator’s experiential style being different than that of a classroom teacher’s
• Assist in discipline during garden classes
• Arrive on time