Growing Solutions: A Student-Led Garden at Silver Creek Elementary

At Silver Creek Elementary, a neglected school garden is being reimagined—not just as a place to grow vegetables, but as a space to grow voice, culture, and confidence.

Led by Thinkering Fellow Kim Rich, Growing Solutions is a student-driven project in its early stages, designed to help young people connect learning with land, culture, and leadership.

The idea is simple: let students lead. Let them design the garden, choose what to grow, tell their own stories through journaling and signage, and connect their work to both academic content and local culture—including the rich agricultural and ecological wisdom of the nearby Seneca Nation.

🌱 What We’re Building

This project is just beginning. Right now, Kim and her students will be:

Clearing the space and drawing design plans / planting
Researching composting and sustainable planting
Creating bilingual garden signage in English and Seneca
Documenting their learning through digital journals
Connecting the work to science, literacy, and culture

Eventually, this garden will serve as a living classroom, supporting curriculum across subjects and strengthening community partnerships. It will be a model for how schools can use underutilized space to build connection, inclusion, and purpose.

But first—we need your help to plant the seeds.

💡 How Your Gift Helps (Phase One)

This campaign funds the launch of Growing Solutions, including:

Soil, compost, and planting materials
Basic tools and infrastructure
Signage supplies for student-created labels and stories
Journaling tools (paper or digital)
Support for inviting community collaborators and local elders

Every donation goes directly to helping students turn their vision into something real—and rooted.

👩‍🏫 About the Project Lead

Kim Rich is a passionate educator and 2025 Thinkering Fellow who is building Growing Solutions as part of her capstone. The project is designed with her students, not for them—and reflects her belief that learning should be hands-on, identity-affirming, and deeply connected to place.

🙌 Be Part of the Garden’s Growth

This is just the beginning. With your support, we can give students the space—and the tools—to grow more than food. We can help them grow into leaders, storytellers, and stewards of their school and community.

Donate today to help launch Growing Solutions.

Changing the world one classroom at a time

Our Mission

As a 501c3 Nonprofit, our mission is to elevate a child’s creativity and interests alongside traditional academic metrics, fostering passion-driven learning with real community impact.

To be a Thinkerer is to be a curious changemaker, open to solving longstanding challenges with fresh ideas.

We collaborate with leading organizations, educators, and innovators to create pathways that nurture student passions. By humanizing education, we aggregate and analyze learning experiences, building a global framework that values creativity and curiosity as essential to academic and personal growth.

Growing Solutions: Help Us Build a Student-Led School Garden at Silver Creek - Kim Rich

By Thinkering Collective

Growing Solutions: Help Us Build a Student-Led School Garden at Silver Creek - Kim Rich

How Thinkering Fellow Kim Rich is transforming an overlooked patch of land into a vibrant ecosystem of student voice, cultural connection, and community-rooted learning.

Team Members