In 2013, I was hired as the Garden Club Advisor at the school where I work. As a club, we are small but mighty. It has been quite the adventure installing beds, planting, maintaining, harvesting, and selling from a 10 bed garden out by our tennis courts. We grow food under organic conditions that serves to educate our students as well as feed our community. We donate during the season to the local Salvation Army food pantry, in addition to selling our veggies at farmer's markets and handmade cards stuffed with our herbs and sunflower seeds. Our raised beds are made with straw waddles, in the grand tradition of the Victory Gardens of WWII. Limited inputs are used, and we rely mainly on Mother Nature to help us out. This past summer, we were able to raise, through the selling of our goods, more than $700. The funds will be donated to several organizations with an agricultural bent, including Growing Home (a USDA-certified organic farm in the city of Chicago which focuses on job training for those in need) and to Kiva.org, a micro-finance operation that allows our students to lend money to people in developing nations.