Today we’d like to introduce you to May Tsupros.
May, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I grew up in southern Illinois, my grandparents had a farm that I would spend summers helping at. I’ve always been fortunate enough to live closely connected to food and the outdoors. After graduating college, I moved to Florida where I quickly realized that research science didn’t provide the human connection I sought, so I applied to Teach For America, was accepted and moved to Chicago in 2008 to become a high school science teacher in North Lawndale.
It was actually in my first year of teaching that I became acutely aware of the lack of access and knowledge of healthy food that I was afforded growing up. This realization slammed into me one day when I was having lunch with a group of my students and one of them couldn’t identify what I was eating– it was a blueberry.
I spend the next 7 years in the classroom, doing my best to push my students to be curious, independent thinkers, but I kept coming back to their diets as a hurdle that, if overcome, could push their learning, thinking, and even physical health to be better.
When year 8 rolled around, I had enough, Gardeneers was born in 2014, Adam Zmick and I started a non-profit that would bring to light food deserts (neighborhoods where there is little to no access of fresh, whole foods) where our students lived. We would address the behaviors and obesity that is correlated with a poor nutrition in low-income neighborhoods by creating school gardens and teaching kids who to connect and grow their own foods.
Here we are in our 5th growing season, just over 4 years old. We are serving 2200+ students/ week in 25 Chicago schools; mostly on the south and west sides of the city. Our goal is 2018 is that collectively, our students will grow 6500lbs of food in their gardens, and that food will go into the school cafeterias and student ran farm stands.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Certainly not. There have been months and months without sleep, paychecks, or free-time. My co-founder, Adam and I have put our lives into building this organization. But, us, along with Amanda Fieldman, our Director of Development and part of the founding team, have made insane growth both personally and professionally and have had the good fortune of meeting some very incredible and generous people along the way.
I think the biggest challenge we face is constantly pushing our own thinking and questioning our beliefs. It’s easy to formulate a system for a business and once you have solidified a process move on to the next challenge that will help your business grow. However, we truly want our work to be grounded in the communities we serve. That means, understanding, authentically, what the needs of that community are, not just prescribing what works because that process is scalable and easy. Our staff of garden educators is constantly providing feedback from the students, parents, and teachers from the schools they work at. All this information is taken in and helps us drive grounded decisions. And yes, those decisions can are ever changing and adapting.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Gardeneers – what should we know?
Our mission is to cultivate customized school garden programs to ensure that each space and the students and communities who care for it connect with healthy food and grow to their full potential. We do this by implementing on-going,full-service support so every student has the opportunity to experience the multifaceted benefits of their school garden.
Currently, we serve 25 schools, and 2200+ students/week. We are a staff of 16, with 8 Americorps service members. We work mostly on the south and west sides of the city and teach programs that range from pre-k- high school, with our elementary programs being during the school day and focusing mostly on nutrition, growing and trying new foods, and our high school programs being more intense, after-school, entrepreneurial and skills focus (learning how to grow a food business)! Our curriculums are grounded in our 3 pillars- supporting student nutrition, experiencing nature, and community with communities.
This year our goals are for our 2200+ students to grow 6500lbs of food, 70% of students try new healthy foods, mobilize 3000 volunteers at 70 unique community days, and host 50 farmstands.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Honestly, plain ol’ elbow grease and hard work. Obviously, this hard work is driven by a passion for the mission, but my work ethic was definitely defined as a teacher (because seriously the life of a teacher is 24/7; that’s another conversation though). I wake up daily at 5:30 am, make coffee, feed my dog and two cats, and then spend the next 2-3 hours at my computer answering emails. THEN, I am ready to start my day.
I think another quality that is important to possess is empathy. This work is hard, working with kids is very emotional work, especially in the garden setting, where the work is hands-on and the kids feel more free to express themselves. Myself and the Gardeneers staff all have the passion for this work, but we also have giant hearts that are open to listening and caring and taking on the emotions of the scholars we work with; this goes far.
And finally, as an Executive Director, I spend a lot of time fundraising, and being a good public speaker and having the ability to pickup on people’s engagement levels and interests, both have proven to be very important to this work.
Cost of programming:
- You can support 1 students for an entire year of hands-on nutrition education in the garden for $300
- $30 buys 1 students tools, gloves, and seeds
- $3500 will pay for a new garden installation at a school
Contact Info:
- Address: 3414 W. Roosevelt Fl 2
Chicago, IL 60608 - Website: www.gardeneers.org
- Email: may@gardeneers.org
- Instagram: @gardeneerschicago
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gardeneers/
- Other: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=obegSQT8m7E
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