TUG-ALL Elaine's Project
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute- East Troy, WI
Teutonia Urban Garden is a model for inner city redevelopment with a 24,000 sq. foot classroom, business incubation and community garden with the site provided by Maures Development in its mixed-use housing development, Teutonia Urban Garden and Handsome Plaza. Teutonia Urban Garden includes an innovative storm water management strategy and during its first phase will provide a hands-on, experiential classroom for Academy of Learning and Leadership, a K-8 Milwaukee public charter school.
Teutonia Urban Garden (TUG) is strategically set in a mixed-use affordable housing development which features a holistic approach to urban renewal and revitalization. Dedicated to educating and empowering inner city youth, businesses, property owners, businesses and residents Maures Development has donated an initial 24,000 square-feet of its Teutonia Urban Garden and Handsome Plaza project to this urban agriculture demonstration site. The garden will serve as a source of education, community-building and aesthetics for students, youth and neighborhood residents.
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute was selected by Milwaukee Metropolitan Sanitary District (MMSD) as a recipient of a “Best Management Practices” grant to install a unique storm water mitigation and irrigation design utilizing an underground cistern.
TUG is located one block from The Academy for Learning and Leadership (ALL) www.all-milwaukee.org, a City of Milwaukee, independent public charter school and will serve as an outdoor classroom access for health and sciences fieldwork and physical and mental benefits of outdoor activity for the 450 K-4 student body. We plan to expand educational opportunities with after-school and summer programs in 2009.
A.L.L. received their charter in 2003 opening their doors to 80 neighborhood children in four-year-old kindergarten through eighth grade. Today the Academy serves 425 children with two campuses on site. A.L.L. is located in the heart of the central city and serves 99.5% African American children - 95% qualify for free or reduced lunch, 20% are special education students; and as their website states, “100% are hungry for learning and community!”
A.L.L. is an Expeditionary Learning Outward Bound school focused on active pedagogy, experiential, hands-on learning. Our students care about learning, engage in creating excellent product, and value learning in a safe and student-centered school committed to their learning and leadership development.” The core curriculum includes teaching agriculture and food production as the basis of health and science education.
Outreach garden programs for students and families will be offered by Elaine’s Project, a health and nutritional project addressing diet-related chronic disease resulting from poor nutrition and health practices. Multiple factors contributing to obesity include endangered food budgets spent on low-cost processed foods, a lack of nutritional awareness and physical activity, as well as inadequate and expensive fresh food availability which can lead to health-related diseases such as Type II diabetes, sleep apnea and depression.
A greenhouse for year-round food production and classroom expeditions is planned for 2009. TUG will provide a site for employment and training for youth
Michael Fields Agricultural Institute is a public, non-profit institute for education and research in sustainable agriculture, which admits students of any race, color and national or ethnic origin.