Grants and Financial Sustainability

For twenty years, the SCSU Community Garden has operated without university operational funding, demonstrating that community-engaged work can be financially sustainable through creative partnerships, strategic grant writing, and mission-aligned revenue generation. Grants play a crucial role in this model—not as ongoing operational support, but as catalysts for innovation and expansion that create new pathways to self-sustainability.

Each grant investment launches initiatives designed to become self-supporting through partnerships, programming fees, and community contributions, allowing the garden to grow its impact while maintaining financial independence. This approach ensures long-term viability while staying true to our core principle: resources should flow to community benefit, not administrative overhead.

Executive summaries and full grant proposals are available upon request. Contact Dr. Tracy Ore for additional information.

Cultivating Healing Garden

Minnesota Department of Agriculture Grant | $33,739 | 2024-2027

In partnership with SCSU's American Indian Center, this Minnesota Department of Agriculture-funded project creates a Healing Garden featuring native plantings, medicinal herbs, and traditional ceremonial plants including cedar, elderberries, sweetgrass, sage, and tobacco. The garden serves as an outdoor classroom providing hands-on education for university students, K-12 youth, and community members about sustainable agriculture, indigenous cultures, biodiversity, and traditional ecological knowledge.

The $33,739 grant supports infrastructure including eight raised garden beds, an irrigation system, and equipment for herb preservation, while educational programming includes workshops, cultural celebrations, and partnerships with area schools, youth organizations, and senior living facilities. This initiative centers indigenous knowledge, provides free access to healing plants, and expands the Community Garden's commitment to environmental stewardship and cultural preservation.

Growing Community: Seeds to Summit

SCSU Foundation Husky Impact Funds | $33,000 | 2026-2028

Celebrating the Community Garden's 20th anniversary, this initiative connects five campus units—Community Garden, Honors College, Huskies Food Pantry, University Library, and Biology Greenhouses & Herbarium—through an annual campus-community summit, year-round programming, and student employment. The project creates four paid student ambassador positions, establishes a library seed bank, delivers cooking workshops at the food pantry, and launches an annual summit bringing together students, faculty, and community members around food, culture, and sustainability.

Building on the garden's proven 20-year track record of generating $7.5 million in economic impact with zero operational funding, this initiative becomes financially self-sustaining by Year 3 through revenue from produce sales, value-added products, and workshop fees. The requested $33,000 investment is leveraged by $80,000+ in partner contributions, serving 150-200 students annually while addressing food insecurity, creating experiential learning opportunities across multiple disciplines, and positioning SCSU as a regional leader in community-engaged food systems education.