OPEN HARVEST
Open Harvest Foundation · founded 2014

Fresh food should be grown, cooked and shared close to home.

We fund community food gardens, school kitchens and paid youth growing crews — so fresh food takes root where children live and learn.
See our workGive monthly
A grower in a cap kneels in a vegetable field lifting a bunch of muddy carrots, two children seen from behind carrying a crate down the rows
Why we exist

Shorten the distance between a seed and a child’s plate.

Good food changes more than lunch. It builds useful skills, paid work, shared places and the confidence to feed a neighbourhood. Open Harvest supplies practical funding, tools, training and time.
Explore four programs
Soil-streaked hands sorting fresh green beans across a steel worktable, seen from above
Impact · reported by partner sites

This season, in plain numbers.

Partner sites report harvest weights, meals cooked and participants each season. We visit every site at least once a year.
How we measure impact
Lunches
41,000
Scratch-cooked lunches a week
Produce
19 t
Harvested last season
Youth growers
310
Teens employed last year
Students
9,800
Reached this year
Gardens
87
Community gardens funded
Kitchens
64
School kitchens re-equipped
Our work · four programs

Put resources where food happens.

Each program begins with a local team and ends with more food, knowledge and ownership staying in the neighbourhood.
01

School Kitchens

64 kitchens re-equipped · 41,000 lunches a week · 212 cooks trained since 2018
Grants and training turn reheating kitchens back into cooking kitchens, with fresh produce on every lunch tray.
02

Community Gardens

87 gardens funded · 19 t harvested last season · 3,400 neighbours with a plot
Start-up funding, soil, tools and a mentor grower help neighbourhood groups turn empty lots into shared food gardens.
03

Youth Growers

310 teens employed last year · $15.50 an hour, every grower
Paid summer and after-school jobs give teenagers aged 14 to 18 the chance to grow, harvest and sell food for their neighbourhoods.
04

Food Education

140 partner classrooms · 36 free lesson plans · 9,800 students reached this year
Garden-to-table lessons connect what children grow at school to science, maths and their plates.
How we work

Stay close. Stay long enough.

Four promises guide every grant we make and every garden we help plant.
01

Local hands first

We fund the cooks, growers and neighbours already doing the work.
02

Stay past planting day

Every grant comes with two seasons of mentoring, not a ribbon-cutting.
03

Children at the table

Kids grow it, cook it and vote on what goes on the menu.
04

Show every dollar

Donors see the beds, the harvest weights and the people in them.
A mentor grower kneels beside raised beds showing seedlings to two children seen from behind
Voices from the field

What staying looks like.

“The kids used to scrape the salad into the bin. Now they ask whose class grew the lettuce, and they finish it.”

Rosa DelgadoHead cook, Wren Hollow Elementary

  • “Open Harvest didn’t just send a cheque. They sent a grower who stayed through our first two seasons until we knew what we were doing.”

    Marcus WebbGarden lead, Cedar Lot Community Garden

  • “I give monthly because the field notes show me the beds, the harvest weights and the kids. I can see where every dollar landed.”

    Helen OkaforMonthly donor since 2019

Field notes · a journal

Notes from the growing season.

Harvest counts, kitchen lessons and the people behind both — reported from the work, not the sidelines.

A school cook in an apron tips sliced carrots from a steel pot into a tray in a busy kitchen

School Kitchens · by Nadia Brooks · March 2026

Forty pounds of carrots and a new lunch menu

How Rosa Delgado and her team at Wren Hollow Elementary went from reheating trays to cooking 600 lunches from scratch.

Get the next field note
Two neighbours carry a timber plank past new raised beds on a former vacant lot

Community Gardens · by Daniel Osei · January 2026

From vacant lot to neighbourhood pantry

Neighbours on Cedar Street turned a fenced, empty lot into 42 raised beds that now supply the pantry two blocks away.

Get the next field note
A young grower seen from behind arranges greens and radishes under a striped market canopy

Youth Growers · by Nadia Brooks · October 2025

Sixteen, and running the Saturday market

Aaliyah Grant joined a Youth Growers crew to earn summer money. Two seasons later, she runs the market stall.

Get the next field note
The field notes letter

One letter each season.

Four emails a year: harvest counts, school cooks’ recipes and the stories behind them.

You can leave the list at any time. How we handle your address

Questions

A few useful answers.

Schools, youth centres and neighbourhood groups in communities where many families face food insecurity. Write to us and we will tell you which program fits.
Contact

Bring a question. Bring an idea.

For grants, partnerships, press, giving or a day in the garden, start here — or find us at 418 Orchard Row, Port Alder. Please leave out sensitive personal details; we talk those through in person.
General questions
hello@openharvestfoundation.exampleGrants, partnerships, press
Donations
See the monthly giftsMonthly gifts, tributes, legacy giving
Volunteer
Email the volunteer teamGarden days, kitchen help

The next season starts here

Help food take root where children live and learn.

A monthly gift, a volunteer shift or a shared introduction can move practical resources into local hands.
Give monthlyTalk with us
Hands pass a crate of fresh greens and carrots across a community garden at dusk, two children walking away along the path