Annual Meeting

Take part in engaging workshops (2.5 contact hours), connect with the school garden community over a shared potluck meal, and hear highlights from the year in our annual report. We’ll also have fun door prizes to round out the event!

Join us for an inspiring afternoon exploring how school gardens can be beautiful, meaningful spaces that nurture both people and the planet. During our themed annual meeting “Where Beauty Meets Purpose”, we’ll consider how thoughtful garden design can create opportunities for hands-on learning, support biodiversity, build resilience, and strengthen connections between students, schools, and their communities.

Come share ideas, learn from one another, and discover ways to create school gardens that are not only productive, but places of beauty, curiosity, and belonging.

Agenda:

2:00 pm: Guest Arrival, light snacks
2:30 pm: Tour of the NEW Ledge and Meadow Garden
3:45 pm: Little World and Big Lessons: Succulent Succulent Potted Gardens in the Classroom
5:00 pm: Potluck dinner and Educator Advisory Group (EAG) meet-up (Guests are invited to bring a dish)
5:40 pm: Highlights from the Year: Annual Report
6:15 pm: Amazing door prizes and goodbyes

Workshop Descriptions:

1. Garden Tour: New Ledge and Meadow Garden

Description: We will discuss the organization’s experience re-designing an aging garden and the successes and learning areas of working on such a large project with garden history, working with landscape architects, building meaningful collections, construction, and plant health.

Presenter: Delaney Pitman

Presenter Bio: Delaney Pitman developed her deep love for native plants while earning her undergraduate degree in Environmental Biology and Ecology from Western Colorado University. She then gained hands-on experience in the art and science of horticulture in a 2-year immersive program through the New York Botanical Gardens. Today, she brings these combined experiences to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, where she works as a Horticulturist II and Conservation Specialist. Delaney manages the Ledge and Meadow Garden and Café Gardens while also propagating wild-collected rare and imperiled plants from seed. Her work supports the development and preservation of plants in CMBG’s living collections and contributes to population augmentation and ecological restoration projects.

2. Little World and Big Lessons: Succulent Succulent Potted Gardens in the Classroom

Discover how succulents can bring hands-on learning to life! In this interactive session, participants will learn about succulents and their unique growing needs, explore ways to integrate succulent cultivation and care into classroom lessons, and create their own mini succulent potted garden to take home. Come grow a little world while discovering the big learning opportunities plants can offer!

Presenters: Beth Jarvis and Erika Huber

Presenter Bios:

Erika Huber is the Youth Education Manager at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens where she has worked since 2012. She holds a B.S. in Forestry from the University of Missouri-Columbia and a Master’s in Horticulture from Kansas State University. She started working in the field of environmental education over 20 years ago and has been fortunate to continue connecting children with nature since that time, through school, community and public garden programming.

Beth Jarvis has been educating children about the natural world for more than 20 years. Though a majority of that time was spent as a classroom teacher, she is now a Youth and Family Programs Educator at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. There she utilizes her classroom experience to lead the summer camp programming and to facilitate and support natural history and gardening education at the local schools.

2025 Annual Meeting Recap

Annual Meeting 2025 took place on Friday November 7th at the Maine Audubon in Falmouth. We wrapped up 2025 with an afternoon and evening celebrating Maine’s school garden community! This year’s Annual Meeting, themed “Small Seeds, Big Impact,” showcased how small actions in school gardens create lasting change across the state.

Participants took part in hands-on workshops with Andrew Tufts of Maine Audubon, who shared practical ways to teach about native meadows, and Randy Cummings of Bootstrap Farmer, who demonstrated how to grow and teach with microgreens. Afterward, guests enjoyed a lively community potluck, heard highlights from the year, and celebrated with door prizes generously donated by our partners and sponsors: Johnny’s Seeds, Allen Sterling Lothrop, The Outdoor Learning School & Store, Coast of Maine Organic Products, Kathy Gunst Cookbooks, Plants Unlimited in Rockport, The Bankery & Skowhegan Fleuriste, Skillins Greenhouses.

Thank you to everyone who joined us—and to our event sponsors, Real Maine and the Foreside Garden Club—for helping us close out another successful year of growing, learning, and inspiring the next generation!

Thank you to our event sponsors:

Real Maine  |  Foreside Garden Club

2024 Annual Meeting Recap

Our 2024 Annual Meeting took place on Friday, November 8, with the fitting theme of “Harvest Homecoming.” It was a beautiful day at MOFGA in Unity, where our community came together to celebrate the successes of the past year.

Guests enjoyed the opportunity to attend a “Fruit Tree Care with Students” workshop led by C.J. Walke, MOFGA’s Orchard Program Manager. C.J. shared his extensive knowledge on fruit tree care, covering essential techniques from protecting young trees to pruning for longevity. Many attendees, who were familiar with MOFGA through the Common Ground Fair, found it refreshing to explore the peaceful grounds in the company of fellow school garden enthusiasts.

Our second workshop took place in the exhibit hall, where Laurie Bowen, a Food Systems Professional with the University of Maine Cooperative Extension, Certified Master Food Preserver, and ServSafe proctor and instructor, led a food preservation demo. Laurie provided expert tips on safe and effective preservation practices, demonstrating with a batch of blueberry jam.

Following the workshops, guests gathered for a potluck meal filled with great conversation. Brittany Layman, MSGN’s Board Chair, then presented the Annual Report, highlighting the impactful work our board members, staff, and supporters accomplished over the year.

The evening wrapped up with door prizes donated by Skillins Greenhouses, PineTree Seeds, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Fedco Seeds, Meeting House Farm, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, MOFGA, and Wild Seed Project. It was a wonderful evening of connection and celebration, and we’re excited to see what 2025 brings!

2023 Annual Meeting Recap

Our 2023 Annual Meeting was held at the beautiful Gilsland Farm Audubon Center in Falmouth. The theme, “Sowing Seeds of Learning” came from the idea of using native plants that are in the season of spreading their seeds and talking about grains (one of the most delicious edible seeds!) to sow ideas for teaching students.

The event began with a session titled, “Native Plants for Nature Study,”  given by Maine Audubon’s Andy Kapinos. Andy led guests on a native plant walk discussing how to use Maine’s natural setting to teach students and different edible and medicinal plants that can be found.

The second session was titled, “A Story of Farm to Pizza Happening in Maine.” We were so grateful to have Amber Lambke of Maine Grains and Heather Kerner of The Good Crust with us to lead this session. Amber gave a rich history of growing grains and the movement to bring back growing grains locally. We got to see a virtual tour of their mill and become inspired through hearing about all the amazing varieties we can grow right here in Maine. Heather talked about founding The Good Crust and their mission to “nourish our community with good food, local grains and inclusive careers.” The Good Crust makes pizza dough with 100% Maine grown grains and has created awesome partnerships with school nutrition departments. We heard some great ideas about making pizza with students with local ingredients, a pizza dough stretching demo and some delicious samples!

Following the professional development sessions we were able to spend time together as a community for a delicious pot luck meal. It was great to hear the room full of conversation and connections being made. Guests were able to witness the premier of MSGN’s video, titled: “Promoting and Supporting Educational Gardens for Youth” created by Just One Look Media. We wrapped up the evening with our Annual Report and some great door prizes thanks to our sponsors.

 

2022 Annual Meeting Recap

Using the School Garden to Help Our Students, Schools, and Communities Heal

Our first in person gathering after two years of virtual meetings was held in the beautiful setting of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens (CMBG).  Our meeting began with a professional development session led by Horticultural Therapist Irene Barber, which included  a walk through the sensory garden, a talk on the practices of horticultural therapy in the outdoor classroom plus a hands-on planting activity!  Attendees were able to get their hands in the soil and take home the rosemary and succulent pots they created. Learn more about therapeutic horticulture services at CMBG here.

Self guided tours of the grounds were followed by a gathering with our community for a meal, always such a special time for us and gave us the chance to hear all the great work school gardens are accomplishing across Maine! Before the business section of our program, educators from Old Town and Etna-Dixmont Elementary School shared some of the ways their gardens are creating healing spaces for their students, schools and communities.

A special thank you to our in kind sponsors: Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Benson Farm Organic Products, ChopChop Magazine, FEDCO, Maine Garden Products, Skillins Nursery and Wyman’s of Maine.   We thank everyone who came to the event and look forward to hosting again next year!

 

If you or your organization would like to be a sponsor of this event next year, please email Susan Sager, Development Manager, at susan@msgn.org   Stay tuned for information!