Katie'S Krops

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“In 2023, the katie's krops gardens keep growing across the nation and in africa, and the fantastic children that bring these gardens to life continue to inspire, impress, and nurture our souls. It was a year of breaking records, saving endangered species, caring for neighbors, tremendous honors, and, sadly, significant loss. Perhaps the most incredible honors was bestowed at the end of 2023, with southern living magazine naming katie 'southerner of the year' in their holiday double issue. Katie and four others received this honor as 'the trailblazers supporting and preserving our region's people, places, and traditions.' following the lead of our young volunteers, we launched an extensive effort to save the endangered monarch butterfly. We constructed a butterfly house in our flagship garden in the area that is now known as monarch meadows. The first-year efforts were a resounding success our young growers tremendously impacted their community's health and well- being by sharing their harvest. These young gardeners grew in their backyards, schools, churches, community centers, farms, and anywhere they could access land to grow a better tomorrow. We are proud to share that collectively, we donated an astounding 71,702 pounds of produce in 2023 we broke records in 2023 we harvested and donated 8,820 pounds of produce from our flagship garden. We attribute this success to increasing our vertical growing space, using soil hummus compost, increasing our volunteer base, and improving our irrigation system. In 2023, we also unveiled our butterfly house, designed and built by kevin arnold, a student with clemson's architectural graduate program this butterfly house our youth led team monarch release 205+ monarch butterflies back into the wild to help the endangered monarch butterflies. In 2023 we hosted over 76 programs in our outdoor classroom, engaging 140 families in fun educational programs in a beautiful outdoor setting. 34% of visitors became garden volunteers this year, we partnered with chef stephen, the culinary director at glowfisch hospitality to offer cooking classes in the garden these classes were a wonderful way to transform our harvests from the garden into delicious snacks and meals our cooking classes were an incredibly popular hands on learning experience we are excited to continue our partnership with glowfisch in 2024 in 2023, we celebrated 13 years of free garden-to-table dinners. This year, we welcomed our young volunteers into the kitchen to prepare our meals. They have been an incredible help, and we love that they can meet the individuals and families they are helping. Additionally, we partnered with fort dorchester high school's culinary program to create a side dish for every dinner. We are grateful for such an excellent team that helps make our dinners possible each dinner we serve 675+ meals in total, 21, 989 hours of youth service went into the katie's krops dinners in 2023. For ariane "ari," a 9-year-old fourth grader from south carolina, it all began with a squash seed. In 2021, as part of a sunday school lesson on the mustard seed, she and her classmates were given squash seeds to take home and grow. Katie's krops was mentioned during the lesson, and voila, a new gardener was born. In her first year growing with katie's krops in 2022, she grew 50 pounds. Building on what she learned, she increased her production and grew 225 pounds in 2023 ari enthusiastically took advantage of every opportunity we offered to our growers this year. "her enthusiasm is contagious we are so proud of her incredible work in her community and becoming a role model for children everywhere. We love that ari's garden is multigenerational and is growing memories and lessons that will last a lifetime," noted katie. Ari is also encouraging others to garden. As a junior girl scout, she and some members of her troop are working on a group project to earn their bronze award. They plan to have a separate garden plot at her grandparen”