Hosting a community planning event at the beginning of your gardening venture helps engage students, parents, teachers, staff, and other community members in your project and establishes an important support group. If possible, plan on hosting the gathering once a year to help participants and supporters maintain communication, builder ownership in the program, and provide opportunities for brainstorming. By gathering input from everyone who has a stake in the garden, you will strengthen the program and add to sustainability.

The following steps will help you host a community planning event. Involve your students in as many steps as possible to help them learn from the experience.

1. Begin by making a list of everyone you think might have an interest in the garden, including students, teachers, staff, parents, volunteers, neighbors and other community members.


2. Choose a date, time, and place for the event. Make sure you have at least 3 weeks to notify everyone.


3. Create an announcement inviting people to the event. Send the announcement to local newsletters or newspapers and to parents. Add to local school or community websites. Post on a sign in front of the garden. Contact people directly by e-mail or by phone.


4. Recruit student or adult volunteers to help on the day of the events. You will need people to serve as greeters to welcome attendees and show them where to go. Depending on the time of day, you may also want to prepare refreshments.


5. Make sure your space is large enough for the anticipated crowd with enough chairs and tables for everyone to sit down.


6. Begin the meeting with introductions of attendees. Ask them to give a brief statement about their interest in the garden.


7. Next, break the larger group into small groups of 6 to 8 individuals. Make sure that each group has representation from all parties present. For example, make sure each group has at least one student, a parent, a community volunteer, a teacher, etc.


8. If you are creating a new garden, ask each group to brainstorm a list of all the features they think should be included in the garden. If you have an existing garden, ask the participants to make a list of possible additions and potential new projects for the garden.


9. After they have had time for discussion, bring the groups back together to share their lists. Ask someone to serve as a recorder to write down all the suggestions on easel paper, creating a master list. Eliminate duplicates and group similar suggestions together.


10. Next, post the ideas around the room. Give each participant 5 to 10 dot stickers. Ask them to place the dots beside the features or ideas they think are most important to include or add to the garden. They can use all their dots on one item or spread them out across several suggestions.
    
    As an example, perhaps one of the suggestions was to create a kitchen garden to grow vegetables for cooking demonstrations. The school nutritionist might really like that idea and think it is important so he/she can place all of his/her dots beside that idea. The intention of this activity is to help prioritize the needs and suggestions.


11. Conclude the planning session by summarizing the findings and thanking everyone for attending. Make sure they know it may not be feasible to implement all the suggestions immediately, but that their input will help with long term planning.


12. After the session, work with students to create a summary of the event. Share the summary with participants and also publicize it in newsletters, newspapers and on community Web sites for those who could not attend.