Over the past month, we checked in with our 2024 grantees to learn how their funded programs, projects, and initiatives are progressing – and to better understand the impact they’re making across Los Angeles. Now, we are excited to share these interviews, with stories of growth, challenges, and community transformation.

Adventures to Dreams Enrichment received funding through the LA2050 Grants Challenge from the Goldhirsh Foundation to support its youth-led gardening and STEAM enrichment program. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation with their team.

LA2050: Adventures to Dreams tends to such a beautiful garden in Long Beach! What are your youth harvesting right now, and what’s their favorite?

Adventures to Dreams Enrichment: The kids are harvesting cherry tomatoes and carrots. They are very invested in the carrots growing in the garden, and when we have our spring fling again, they will have lots of carrots. So carrots are the favorite.

We buy the seeds from this particular nursery with carrots in different sizes and shapes. Some carrots are shaped like little round balls, some are long, and some are short stacks about the size of your pointer finger. We also buy different color seeds, so they don't know what they'll get until they pull them up, which is exciting. They compare whatever they pick, so there’s a discussion on the carrots' various shapes, sizes, and colors. That has been the most significant topic of what's growing in the garden, so we’re glad to have found these seeds.

The kids also eat the carrots. When the carrots are ready to be harvested, we always pull one, rinse it off, and start eating it.

It's extraordinary to eat something directly from the soil, and not worry about pesticides. It’s also a plus for us, since the kids can engage without their parents worrying. The produce comes straight from the seeds their kids planted.

LA2050: What are some of the unique benefits of integrating gardening with STEAM education?

Adventures to Dreams Enrichment: When we present our gardening to the kids, we always talk about the science part. We talk about the plants and how some of the plants have different leaves from others. The kids love insects, so we gave them these magnifying glasses and let them search the garden for roly-polies and other kinds of insects. They also find little ant farms throughout the garden sometimes.

We always discuss the nutritional value of the food they eat from the garden. For the science element, we discuss the best time to plant certain seeds. We tell them which seeds are for winter and summer; overall, we just give them an idea of what growing your own food is all about. You have to know what your plant is, and you have to know its nutritional value.

The engineering part comes from many college students and the kiddos who help build the garden beds. So they get to see how we put them together, and some of them can use the power tools to put in screws and line it up with foil.

Those are some of the main elements from the STEAM portion that we concentrate on.

LA2050: What do you hope to achieve in the last six months of the grant, and how can the broader LA2050 community support?

Adventures to Dreams Enrichment: Well, we've recently been invited to go to a high school for our Adventure Lab, we will focus on setting up at Cabrillo High School in the Fall, about nine minutes away from the garden.

We are concentrating on schools located within a 10-minute radius of the garden. We look forward to presenting what the Adventure Lab is, all that we do, and what the kids will learn and get excited about. We also want to be able to hire more staff. We have college interns asking for part-time jobs, and one of our dreams is to bring in a few more interns to work in the garden.

Regarding action items for the broader LA2050 community, donating time and interacting with the kids is always good. Come out and help us because we always need help with backpack giveaways or setting up whenever we have events. Donating time and being able to show me any type of guidance is also a plus. We’re always open to suggestions and new ways to do things next year.

When this vision first came to me (Sheila) in 2015, I never imagined it would grow the way it has. I wanted to get the kids away from their surroundings and show them more of the world. I was an educator working in the projects of Los Angeles, the Imperial Courts, to be exact, and I wanted to get the kids out of there just to show them that there is another world.

I have this idea to get grocery stores like Trader Joe's to start doing pop-ups in areas like the projects so that people can access healthier food. People want to eat healthier, but those stores are so spread out, and it's impossible to get there without transportation. There's an area near the projects in Los Angeles where many stores have closed or gone out of business, and it would be great for Trader Joe's to come and do pop-ups. Even a monthly pop-up grocery store would change lives, since it would be easier to eat healthier.

We’re trying to figure out how we can connect with the right people at Trader Joe's so they can provide fresh food in these specific areas.

Interview Participants:

Ms. Sheila Grantham, Founder / Executive Director