The TD Ready Challenge awarded a $1 million grant to The Education Fund, a non-profit in Miami Lakes which supports public school teachers and students in Miami-Dade County.
The Education Fund said it will put the money toward creating a new math curriculum to be taught at 51 elementary schools in the county that use food forests and gardens to teach science and provide vegetables to students and their families.
Called Edible Outdoor Eco-labs, the program will seek to repair delays to students’ progress in math and science due to disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This programming is critical to not only helping accelerate learning and overcome pandemic-related learning loss for some of our most vulnerable students, but also fostering connections among classmates,” Nick Miceli, regional president for Metro Florida at TD Bank said in a media release.
“As the first-ever $1 million USD TD Ready Challenge recipient here in the U.S., we are incredibly thankful for all The Education Fund does in our local community and can’t wait to see the impact this support will create,” he said.
Schools near Miami Lakes that will participate in the program include Spanish Lake Elementary School and Joella C. Good Elementary School.
“With this grant, we change the dynamic for students, who have lost almost 20 percentage points in math achievement,”
said Linda Lecht, president of The Education Fund. “Studies show students who learn in nature are more engaged, more attentive, more self-regulated, and less stressed.
“To recover from COVID-induced learning loss, students desperately need the cutting-edge learning methods our program and this TD grant provide,” she said.
The Education Fund is located at 6713 Main St. in Miami Lakes.
Its supporters include The Graham Companies.