Greensboro Children’s Museum Edible Schoolyard

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Greensboro Children’s Museum Edible Schoolyard

The Edible Schoolyard at Greensboro Children’s Museum (GCM), designed by NLI, engages children and families in hands-on permaculture gardening and cooking, “from seed to table.” Betsy Grant, then museum CEO, led conversion of an underused space into a strolling/learning garden dedicated to healthy eating, with fruits, vegetables, and culinary traditions from around the world, now serving local, disadvantaged communities.

The 2010 dedication honored Alice Waters, leader of the farm-to-table movement, who as owner of famous Chez Panisse restaurant in Berkeley, CA, instigated the original Edible Schoolyard at Martin Luther King Middle School. The Greensboro version became a licensed satellite of the original.

A renovated café-restaurant commercial kitchen (existing prior to the museum), serves after-school and summer gardening/cooking programs, with outreach to families, local schools, Head Start, and early childhood centers. In the adjacent “mud café” cooking experiences are playfully dramatized!

The Edible Schoolyard has become a unique community crossroads, cheered on by local restaurateurs who share the same dedication to local foods and healthy, joyful eating.

The NLI team collaborated with landscape architects Carla Delcambre and David Swanson, and local permaculture expert, Charlie Headington, to implement the Edible Schoolyard.