Gender Equality United States Project #41509

"Dirt Girls" Can Close the Gender Gap in STEM

by The School Garden Doctor

"Dirt Girls" Can Close the Gender Gap in STEM

Project Report | Oct 22, 2024
A Final Impact Report

By Carrie Strohl | Lead Dirt Girl

Q & the flower

Dear Seed Funder,

In 2019, The School Garden Doctor was a newly-incorporated nonprofit organization, not yet well-established in the community. Yet, we knew our Dirt Girls program would capture attention.

Given the most pressing problems facing the world today, we need to close the gender gap in STEM, where women fill only 29% of jobs. School gardens and extended day are both great opportunities to build interest in horticulture and science!

Despite our plans, six months after our first fundraising campaign we were propelled into a pause of epic proportions. The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the intent to expand Dirt Girls to more schools. Like everyone else, I pivoted to the online format and launched Dirt Girls Grow Indoors. We shipped 100 houseplants and explored botany through the video screen, trying to maintain connection to nature, ourselves, and each other. In 2022, we offered a small community-wide program at a local high school, but there were some drawbacks.

Five years since our initial campaign, we connected with a local school that agreed to pilot an in-person program. Last spring, we recruited 20 kids to join Dirt Girls. Twelve of those attended 80% of the sessions for a total of 100+ hours of outdoor exploration, social connection, and interest building.

Here’s what we found:

100% of participants met someone they didn’t know before.
100% tried/did something new.
92% liked working as a team to complete a job.
83% have a garden at home.
83% would join this club again.
67% learned about what a scientist does.

Our findings represent the key components of the Dirt Girls program: cross-age apprenticeship and mentoring, developing an interest or hobby in horticulture, engaging in problem solving and teamwork. In just six weeks, we made seed paper, crafted butterfly puddling stations, and installed a Monarch Waystation.

Dirt Girls was such a success, we offered to support the program all year long, investing not only in the youth who attend, but also the garden educator and growing space on the campus. None of this would have been possible without the ongoing support of the kind donors we have here.

Please continue to watch us grow.

Subscribe to Dirt Girls Diary to receive periodic updates after this final report. To subscribe, clink the link (here or below) or copy and paste the link into a browser: https://schoolgardendoctor.org/dirt-girl-diary/

You can also reach me any time at carrie@schoolgardendoctor.org.

With heartfelt gratitude,

Carrie

Dirt Girls at the Farmer Market

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Oct 25, 2023
Painting Past Empowerment

By Carrie Strohl | Lead Dirt Girl

Feb 27, 2023
Dirt Girl Year In Review

By Carrie Strohl | Lead Dirt Girl

First Grader Solidarity

Dear Donor,

At the end of 2021, we received the generous contribution of $386 which pushed us over our $10,000 goal! We’ve continued to fundraise since then, but experimented with other approaches and venues. We did start a new project on GlobalGiving, so head over and check it out.

This time last year, I was preparing to resume in-person programming in partnership with a high school science teacher who was willing to open her garden to us. Believe it or not, schools have pretty strict rules about access, so there are only a handful of schools in Napa that offer gardens for rent for public use (and, as a side note, part of why we maintain liability insurance).

The 2022 Dirt Girl season started April 18th and ran through June 10th of 2022. It was a blast and I learned a lot. One lesson I took away is that it’s tough to run a program on a drop-in basis. Not being able to see the garden day-to-day was different, as was schlepping my supplies to and from the car twice weekly.

Recruitment was also a challenge. As the world got safer, it also got busier. Many people returned to former habits, which meant also resuming out-of-school time programming. Without an already-established presence or dedicated marketing team, we only drew eight kids to sign up. Three families paid the extremely low-cost of $5 per session, but the remaining participants joined us free of charge thanks to your donations.

We engaged one returning student from 2021 and two students from teacher recommendations. We also welcomed our youngest Dirt Girls ever. Three first grade students, all children of school district employees, joined us for the season and one kindergarten sibling joined us on Mondays. One parent, a school counselor, would arrive about 30 minutes late on Friday afternoons, but her daughter would beg to come to the sessions because she loved it.

Some other fortuitous things also came about. Our season was subsidized by a generous contribution of supplies funded by a local chapter of DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution). A good friend, and former coworker, also a Dirt Girl donor, can trace her lineage to a patriot in the Revolutionary War (and we've had great discussions about this). I gave a talk, we drank tea, and they made a commitment of $500 above their donation budget to Dirt Girls!!! It was such a treat to be among a group of progressively-minded, historically-grounded women and to be present in real life.

Due to a few personal and logistical challenges, it was late summer before I realized that this funded project would no longer receive reports or updates, so I’m posting this final report with an ask to follow our ongoing progress at Dirt Girl Diary, a blog that lives on The School Garden Doctor’s website. You can find the link below for curated posts since 2016.

We’re still actively pursuing our next Dirt Girl venture, which wouldn’t be possible without your generosity.

Thank you so very much for your ongoing support.

Carrie

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