GAF News & Updates

Planter Boxes for Summer/Fall

Thursday, June 21st was a buys day for the Interact Club and our friends from Bethel School District helped us add three new planter boxes for the summer/fall growing efforts. Next step will be to load them with Rexius Soil and plan our fall/winter crops. Great job everyone!

Veneta Farmers Market

The Interact Club will be at the Veneta Farmers Market every Saturday from 10am to 2pm selling our Vegetable Starters and produce that we grow. Come and visit us at the booth and start growing with us.

Our Greenhouse - Growing Starters for Spring!

Building our new Growing a Future greenhouse was a labor of love and hard work. Our thanks to Sea Mercy for the donation of the greenhouse, to Charlie Colbath for the construction assistance (tools and knowledge is a dnagerous combination), to Myckenzi Moore's dad for the use of the trailer to deliver it to the school, and to Jeff Thiessen from the school district who loaned us the tractor and auger to dig the post holes.  With over 20 Interact members helping, greenhouse came together quickly and everyone had a chance to get a little dirty and tired. 

Saturday Order Fulfillment

Thanks Kayla for taking a few hours out of your busy weekend to fill Vegetable Starters orders. It was fun getting to know you as we filled orders. Kayla is one of the Fern Ridge Rotary Club's RYLA leadership member attendees this June, she is an artist, a writer and wants to pursue medical school when she graduates!

Elmira Spring Festival

 with over 100 starters sold, we learned how to present our product, process payments, develop a marketing plan for them, and even order fulfillment. It was fun seeing how well received our plants were and how grateful and supportive the community was for our efforts. We can wait for the next event!

Sea Mercy in Elmira

Although Sea Mercy has spent the past 6 years providing free health care, disaster response and economic development programs for the thousands of 'at risk' remote island across the South Pacific, their non-profit headquarters is based right here in Elmira, Oregon. 

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Our Interact Club's Growing a Future program is based around the effective teaching and training programs Sea Mercy provides with their Remote Islands Soils Education (RISE) Program. A program designed specifically to help the remote islands to return to the healthy, self-sustaining and thriving communities they once were. 

Thank You Fern Ridge School District

We wanted to take a moment to thank the leadership and staff of the Fern Ridge School District for their shared vision and support of our Growing a Future program. 

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Gary Carpenter, Superintendent

Michelle Marshall, Principal, Elmira Elementary

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Jeff Thiessen, Grounds and Maintenance Department

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We look forward to making this a world class program for learning and teamwork with the community.

Thank You Rexius!

Because soil is the heart of any growing program, we are so grateful to Rexius for the amazing donation of outstanding potting soil for our Growing a Future vegetable starters. Whether you are ordering your starters in a 4-pack, a 3-plant bucket, or a single plant bucket, your starters will be in some of the most nutricious organic soil in Eugene.

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It is support from local partners like Rexius that makes our program special and community driven.