The Boren Foundation has awarded Indiana Wesleyan University a $25,000 grant to be used towards adding an outdoor classroom to the IWU Alliance Garden, an educational, small-scale farm located near the IWU residential campus in Marion, Indiana.
Founded in 2012, the Alliance Garden seeks to train and educate members of the IWU and Grant County communities about sustainable agriculture. The garden serves as an outdoor teaching laboratory for IWU undergraduates to learn about sustainable practices both for the environment and agriculture.
While the Alliance Garden is already used to teach and engage with the community, the grant funds will be used to build an outdoor classroom at the gardens to increase its capacity to host visitors for seminars and classes. Specifically, the new outdoor space will include a pavilion, a bathroom facility, and a room for storage and projects—including honey extraction and vegetable preparation for donation.
“The outdoor classroom will be a unique feature to the garden and will be a valuable resource to both undergraduates and the community,” said Dr. Jennifer Noseworthy, Alliance Garden program director and assistant professor of Biology at IWU. “I am thrilled to have this opportunity to further the mission of the Alliance Garden and serve the Grant County Community through locally grown sustainable agriculture thanks to the generosity of the Boren Foundation.”
For more information on IWU’s Alliance Garden, visit alliancegardens.wixsite.com/thealliancegardens.