To cover garden costs that exceed your current budget, apply for a grant. Teachers and parents who have received grants for their school gardens consistently say that the award pays off well into the future. If you choose to expand your garden from year to year, the money will also grow  – funders respond in kind to school communities that have already demonstrated that they can accomplish their goals.

Below is a comprehensive list of national grant resources.

Lowes Charitable and Educational Foundation
Application Deadline: Ongoing
Grants generally range from $5,000 to $25,000.

Captain Planet Foundation
Application Deadline: Ongoing
$250 to $2,500

American Honda Foundation
Application Deadline: Ongoing
$20,000 to $60,000 over a one-year period

Annie's Grants for Gardens
Application Deadline: Ongoing
Annie's offers a limited number of small grants to community gardens, school gardens and other educational programs that connect children directly to gardening.  These funds can be used to buy gardening tools, seeds or other needed supplies.

Walmart Store and Sam's Club Giving Programs
Application Deadline: Ongoing
Through Walmart Store and Sam’s Club Giving Programs, Walmart Stores and Sam’s Clubs can recommend grants of up to $5,000 to local nonprofit organizations.

Nature Hills Green America Awards
Application Deadline: April 10, 2010
Nature Hills Nursery will donate $5,000.00 of plant materials annually to the earth friendly award-winning projects. Awards will be presented to a Grand Prize winner in the amount of $2,500.00 of plant materials. First place winner will receive $1,500 in plant materials and the Second Place winner $1000.00 in plant materials. The plant materials can contain trees, fruit trees, bushes and shrubs, perennials and vegetable seeds.

ING Unsung Heroes
Application Deadline: April 30, 2010
Each year, 100 educators are selected to receive $2,000 to help fund their innovative class projects. Three of those are chosen to receive the top awards of an additional $5,000, $10,000 and $25,000

Donors Choose
Donors Choose provides an avenue for public school teachers to submit project requests for the specific materials their students need to learn. Donors choose which projects to support. Once a project is funded, we deliver the materials directly to the school. In return, teachers submit photos of the project in use and thank-you notes from students, which we then send to the project’s donors.

Operation Green Plant
America the Beautiful Fund offers grants of FREE SEEDS! to community groups striving to better our world through gardening.

Boxtops4Education
Raise funds through box tops! Box Tops has helped America's schools earn over $300 million since 1996.
 

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