Seeds of Leadership (SOL) Youth Garden Program
The SOL Youth Garden Program is a youth employment program training teenagers to be leaders in their community in the areas of sustainable food systems, organic gardening, and nutrition. Youth interns learn all aspects of sustainable urban agriculture as well as the tools to speak about their experience to community groups in the hopes of building bridges for a more equitable and ecological community food system in Southeast San Diego.
The following video was written and produced by one group of these interns with help from San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project. SOL is funded by a generous grant from the San Diego Women's Foundation.
Download the SOL Youth Garden Newsletters
Summer 2007 | Winter 2008 | Spring 2008
Leadership Taking Root article about the Terra Nova Garden at Morse High School by Joe Tash, published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on February 23, 2008.
The Terra Nova Garden at Morse High School
San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project (ROOTS), in conjunction with The San Diego Unified School District, have helped create a 4000-square-foot organic garden/learning center at Morse High School in southeast San Diego.
With the new ban on junk foods in California schools, Terra Nova’s garden and emphasis on fresh, healthy food offers a positive solution to the growing epidemic of childhood obesity.
Modeled after Berkeley’s Edible Schoolyard, the garden is the centerpiece for Terra Nova, a Morse High School small learning community that focuses on Environmental Science, Nutrition and Culinary Arts.
Future plans call for an even larger garden on the campus. According to Morse High Principal Rocio Weiss, the long-range goal is to develop a one-acre site as a campus mini-farm that develops business and post-school job skills for students as well as good eating and cooking habits.
“One purpose would be to increase the relevance of what the students are learning in their core subjects,” Weiss said, “so that they can begin seeing the connections between what they’re learning in math and science and what they might be doing as adults.
We recently had students from Crawford High School's garden program come to visit, which was a blast for both groups of kids. Heide Bruckner, the program coordinator, brought her smiling, joyful energy along with some great snacks while we all got to know eachother through games, planting sunflowers, and herbal sachet making. We hope to visit the Crawford High School garden soon as see what's growing on their campus!
Wanna help?
Once a month (or more often as needed) we'll be hosting community garden volunteer days at the Terra Nova Garden. If you're interested in joining us, please contact Julia at
The school is located at 6905 Skyline Drive in the Skyline area of east San Diego. A map is below to help you find it.
Thanks, and hope to see you there!
