Gardening venture takes root and inspires Waterloo community

Some of the leading solutions that tackle pressing challenges in our society started with an idea. 

At the core of addressing gaps and challenges in Waterloo Region are University of Waterloo students, alumni and researchers, who are known for thinking unconventionally and working collaboratively for the betterment of humanity and our planet.

Youth-led gardening venture, Nurture, started as an idea between co-founders Sriranjini Raman (BES ’24) and Jackie Kinney (BES ’23), through their involvement with United College’s social impact incubator GreenHouse. The pair’s singular objective was to empower youth to grow their own food.

Launched in 2022, Nurture facilitates installation of youth-designed and tended gardens at local schools. This summer, they will support 75 youth-led gardens at 15 elementary and secondary schools across Waterloo Region.  

Growing local gardening capacity 

Recognizing the importance of addressing challenges in their own backyard and collaborating locally, Nurture, now housed within the Smart Waterloo Region Innovation Lab,  strives to build capacity and partnerships at the local level. 

Community partnerships are critical to ensuring student projects outlive the length of a university degree. “If we can put students’ ideas out into the world and tie them to a local organization that is already well-rooted, the ideas have a greater chance of becoming sustainable and having a lasting impact,” says Erin Hogan, programs manager at GreenHouse.   

Rooted in the University of Waterloo and GreenHouse’s unconventional approach to addressing local and global challenges, Nurture gives young people the tools they need to caretake gardens and food forests at their own school over the summer. Students are also empowered to be active participants in finding climate change solutions and creating a sustainable future for their planet. 

“Everyone wants to protect the planet, but that personal connection to nature and land stewardship is often missing,” Raman shares. 

Taking root in the community: Garden mentors

Waterloo’s Centennial Public School is one example of a local school that is proud home to a Nurture gardening program.      

This summer, five local elementary and high school students are volunteering their time to support the Centennial food forest. Food grown in the garden will be donated back to the community via a local non-profit, the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Circle. 

In addition, a team of GreenHouse staff are volunteering as garden mentors at Centennial, acting as supports, helping students build capacity and encouraging them to nurture ideas of their own.  

Hogan views the relationships with local schools as reciprocal. “Sharing resources, ideas, and time enhances the capacity of both our programs,” she says. “GreenHouse can offer guidance and support to youth keen to make an impact and Nurture can provide the context where students can get their hands dirty tackling real-world challenges.”  

Cultivating inspiration   

Nurture’s impact is large and continues to grow. As a community partner in a recent term of GreenHouse’s Changemaker Labs program, Nurture staff presented on challenges and opportunities observed in the local food system. Four local high school students who participated in Nurture’s gardening program subsequently joined Changemaker Labs and pitched a sustainable food idea of their own, based on their experiences in the garden.  The students’ concept, SmartSoil, is a mobile app that live monitors a garden and gives reminders about when, and how much, to water plants. The app also tells users how far apart to properly space seeds, with the objective of reducing food waste and addressing food insecurity in the Region. 

One of these students, Sara Mihajlovic, took things even further. Getting involved in GreenHouse’s signature Social Innovators in Training program earlier this year, Mihajlovic, along with teammates, pitched SmartSoil again, taking their previous learnings and innovative approach to food insecurity to a deeper level. 

Sara Mihajlovic (centre) and fellow Nurture program participants, summer 2023

“My participation in both Nurture and Greenhouse are very closely linked. Without one, I wouldn’t have the other. Being a volunteer with Nurture taught me how to problem-solve and adapt to new circumstances in the garden,” Mihajlovic says. “Changemaker Labs gave me support to think critically about my time in the garden and what issues I saw come up.”

Mihajlovic will officially join the University of Waterloo community this fall to pursue a degree in Systems Design Engineering and has plans to stay involved with GreenHouse. “Seeing the ideas that came out of innovation was very helpful and interesting to me. It made me realize that I can connect my future in engineering to my hobby of gardening,” she shares.    

With plans to expand into every elementary and secondary school in Waterloo Region, Nurture’s roots will continue to grow, inspiring ideas and nourishing lives along the way.