The Cultivating Partnerships series is a behind-the-scenes look at the dynamic collaborations advancing the Foundation’s mission and helping children thrive.
The Strategy
School gardens play an important role in helping children develop healthy eating habits for life and contributing to their improved health and overall well-being. By investing in these edible garden learning spaces, Newman’s Own Foundation seeks to not only help kids establish healthy eating habits and increase their fruit and vegetable knowledge and consumption, but also support communities in engaging kids in hands on learning experiences that support school academic curriculum and foster a culture of health.
The Collaboration
To enable schools serving grades K-12 across the US to create and enhance their gardens, Newman’s Own Foundation teamed up with Whole Foods Market Foundation and contributed $100K in support of their 2025 Whole Kids Garden Grants. Together, Newman’s Own Foundation, Whole Foods Market Foundation, and other corporate donors, contributed a total of $3.4M to benefit 950 school gardens. In addition to the $3,500 grant each school received, funding from Newman’s Own Foundation provided an additional $1,000 to 100 of the schools that are using their gardens to nourish and transform the lives of children facing adversity.
This year, we are excited to once again team up with Whole Foods Foundation in support of their 2026 Whole Kids Garden Grants!
Photo courtesy of William H. Hunter in Philadelphia, PA.
Lessons Learned
Don’t Recreate the Wheel
Photo courtesy of William H. Hunter in Philadelphia, PA.
Don’t Recreate the Wheel
Both teams recognized the strong overlap in focus areas, specifically school food, nutrition education, and youth. Whole Foods Market Foundation was already planning to relaunch its Garden Grants program and had in place an application portal, application reviewer framework, grant disbursement mechanism, and more. Thus, rather than endeavoring to create a new program for engaging schools, Newman’s Own Foundation invested in Whole Foods Market Foundation’s program. This allowed Newman’s Own Foundation to streamline the use of our resources and amplify Whole Foods Market Foundation’s efforts to benefit schools.
Photo courtesy of William H. Hunter in Philadelphia, PA.
Stronger Together
Photo courtesy of The Alberta School of Performing Arts in Tuscaloosa, AL
Stronger Together
The combination of skills, knowledge, and connections from both teams resulted in the development of new application questions, refinement of application processes, and the exploration of creative promotional strategies.
By working together and leveraging one another’s strengths, the program achieved greater reach, impact, and scale than it would have otherwise or if working alone. For example, we were greatly impressed by Whole Foods Market Foundation’s reach with schools across the country while they noted Newman’s Own Foundation’s connections with networks focused on Indigenous communities was very helpful in reaching more eligible schools.
Photo courtesy of The Alberta School of Performing Arts in Tuscaloosa, AL
Good Communication is Priceless
Good Communication is Priceless
While both teams crafted terms related to respective roles and responsibilities in advance of the collaboration, questions still arose related to implementation of the program itself. Such issues and concerns are perhaps inevitable, but having a good framework in place for how to handle such questions and a way to communicate openly helped pave the way for addressing any challenges. The teams did this by incorporating regular check-in meetings with key team members, sharing project tracking tools, and exchanging additional emails and phone calls as needed with a commitment to providing prompt responses.
2026 Garden Grants
For the second year in a row, Newman’s Own Foundation team will support the Whole Kids Garden Grants program!
Photo courtesy of Pacific High School
“We’re always looking for dynamic ways to collaborate with others working to advance food justice. This unique partnership with Whole Foods Market Foundation provided an exciting opportunity to support school gardens at an essential time.”
Learn More About School Gardens
Check out our grantee partners, including FRESHFARM in Washington, DC, and STAR School in Leupp, AZ. Through supporting these innovative efforts, we’ve witnessed firsthand how dynamic nutrition education programs have utilized school gardens to not only help kids establish healthy eating habits, but also increase their fruit and vegetable consumption and engage in hands on learning experiences that support the school’s academic curriculum. School gardens and the experiences students have in them help children develop healthy eating habits that they will carry with them for life.