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Community Celebration Marks Opening of Sprouts House, a Hub for Garden-Based Learning and Sustainability

Today
Two renovated brick homes with green trim. There is a sign on an easel and chair and benches set up for guests.

Located at Mansfeld Middle School in Tucson, the newly renovated Sprouts House brings fresh life to two historic bungalows, creating space for garden-based learning and collaboration.

Mackenzie Virdee

The University of Arizona School Garden Workshop celebrated the launch of Sprouts House – a new, expanded facility designed to grow K-12 school garden programming in partnership with the Tucson Unified School District – which will serve as program headquarters and a national model for experiential, garden-based education. The SGW is housed in the School of Geography, Development and Environment in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences.

A woman on the left in a green Sprouts t-shirt looks to her left at a man in a blue shirt and baseball cap, who holds a microphone and is speaking

Lyndsey Waugh, executive director of the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation; and Moses Thompson, executive director of the U of A School Garden Workshop.

Mackenzie Virdee

Made possible by a $1 million lead gift from the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation, this lead gift was part of a larger $2.5 million fundraising campaign to establish a comprehensive school garden and sustainability hub, made possible through the generous support of additional partners including the T.R. Brown Family Foundations, Zuckerman Family Foundation, Marshall Foundation, U of A Office of Sustainability, and principal donors Ken and Linda Robin, and Norma and Matt Gentry.

Sprouts House is housed in two historic university-owned bungalows — now a hub for food, environmental and community learning. The renovated facility features a commercial kitchen, a flexible community classroom, a greenhouse and an outdoor teaching and production garden.

The dedication ceremony at Mansfeld Middle School site featured mariachi music and a food literacy demonstration. Speakers included U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva; Lori Poloni-Staudinger, dean of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences; Gabriel Trujillo, Tucson Unified School District superintendent; Lyndsey Waugh, executive director of the Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation; and Moses Thompson, executive director of the University of Arizona School Garden Workshop.

“We're here to celebrate the 20-year journey that took us here and the people that brought this to life — my team members. They are the folks who are going to set this place on fire with school, garden enrichment, culinary nutrition, sustainable agriculture, and culturally responsive curricular integration,” said Thompson. 

He added that “All of that is going to happen here for the 800 students at Mansfeld Middle School, the University of Arizona interns, and the 100 plus TUSD teachers that we work with. What you are looking at is a launching pad to scale the work that we've been doing for 20 years.”

Three men and one woman stands together in a row, outside, in front of a brick home

From left: Keith Woodward, director of the School of Geography, Development and Environment; Moses Thompson and Lori Poloni-Staudinger; and Greg Barron-Gafford, associate director of the School Garden Workshop.

Mackenzie Virdee

Since its founding in 2010, the SGW has partnered with Tucson schools to connect students to food, community, and the environment through hands-on learning. U of A students serve as interns in more than 18 under-resourced K-12 schools in TUSD, helping to maintain over 50 gardens while supporting teachers in integrating garden-based lessons into the curriculum.

The new facility significantly increases SGW's capacity, serving about 150 educators, 150 university students, and more than 6,000 K-12 students annually. Its production garden and kitchen support growing and distributing fresh produce, letting students experience the full cycle of planting, harvesting, preparing, and sharing food.

"No other organization does it better than School Garden Workshop when it comes to connecting the university, schools and the community in the school garden space," said Waugh. "All of us at Sprouts are proud to be part of this project and to share in the incredible impact it will have on children and our community for years to come."

Nine students in green Sprouts t-shirts stand grouped around a woman with long brown hair , black pants and khaki shirt, all outside the renovated bungalows

School Garden Workshop student ambassadors with U.S. Rep.-elect Adelita Grijalva.

Mackenzie Virdee