The county has awarded a three-year, $197,000 grant for an environmental education program at Novato elementary schools.
The grant is part of the county’s Food, Agriculture and Resilient Ecosystems program, known as FARE. It is funded by voter-approved Measure A, a countywide, quarter-cent sales tax designated to support parks, open space and sustainable agriculture.
The grant supports Sustainable Marin Schools, a nonprofit organization whose fiscal sponsor is MarinLink.
“One of the key reasons we funded that grant — I know all the schools have community gardens — is that there’s a real opportunity here to help Sustainable Marin Schools cement their relationship with the school district,” said Kevin Wright, a county parks official. “We wanted to help the district create this more structured package of school-garden-type offerings across the district.”
Wright said the partnership between Sustainable Marin Schools and the Novato Unified School District will help them look for more grant funding.
The county grant supports the gardens at eight schools, and two more are planned, said Lisa Clarke, the founder of Sustainable Marin Schools.
Marin Community Foundation is funding the salaries for Clarke and for program director Erica Durwood, who was hired in December.
The other funding partner is the state, which is providing stipends for eight interns to visit each school on a full-time basis to work with students on various environmental projects. The interns are from the California Climate Action Corps, Clarke said.
“When you’re doing these projects at schools, you can engage students at every level, from planning to actually carrying things out,” said Clarke, a Novato resident.
A former cancer research epidemiologist, Clarke got involved in environmental work in 2021 when her children were attending Lucas Valley Elementary School. A parent volunteer at the time, Clarke became interested in the school’s zero waste programs.
Clarke said her family left Marin for a year to live in Montreal because of her husband’s job. She spent a lot of time at the local school in Montreal, researching what more could be done to help schools and students adopt eco-conscious projects.
When the family returned to Marin in the summer of 2022, Clarke presented a pilot proposal to the Novato school district, which approved it. The pilot was a zero-waste program at Rancho Elementary School.
“We were able to divert 50,000 pounds of waste,” Clarke said. “That’s a lot for a school that size.”
By this school year, the program had expanded to the eight campuses, and the FARE grant was approved in December.
Clarke said the projects at the schools fall into four categories: zero waste; energy efficiency and electrification; environmental literacy; and greening schoolyards.
One popular project is a student recycling program at lunch times. Trained student monitors, with the help of the program interns, work with students to help them understand what to recycle in the plastic bins outside their schools.
Another activity has been building an outdoor classroom at Rancho Elementary School on what had been a muddy and underused courtyard. The students are also doing planting and landscaping around the new construction.
“We have some giant logs that have been donated that we’re rolling out for the kids to sit on,” Clarke said.
Perhaps most exciting is the continuing evolution of each school’s garden areas. For example, the program plans to expand the gardens at Rancho Elementary to include a special garden for families in the community.
“We want to give families who are living in apartments, and who may not have a yard, the chance to create their own garden,” Clarke said.
Durwood said she feels she is “helping to create climate justice and a more inclusive and sustainable future.”
On any given day, Durwood’s car trunk could be loaded with donated rock she will deliver to a school site for its eco-landscaping. Or she could be sitting at a cafe, scanning social media for leads on businesses or families looking to unload materials that might be useful on a school’s project.
“It is such a privilege to be serving our public schools and creating opportunities for our youth to engage with and lead the movement towards climate resiliency in their communities,” Durwood said.
Gretchen Schubeck, sustainability coordinator for Novato, agreed that working with youths to build environmental awareness was beneficial for everyone.
“The work that Sustainable Marin Schools is doing to support and empower Novato’s youngest residents to be stewards of our environment is truly inspiring,” Schubeck said. “They are an incredible organization, and we are so fortunate to have them in Novato.”
More information is online at sustainablemarinschools.org.
Lisa Clarke, founder of Sustainable Marin Schools, carries plants for a new native plant garden at Rancho Elementary School in Novato, Calif., on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
A crew from non-profit Sustainable Marin Schools installs a native plant garden at Rancho Elementary School in Novato, Calif. on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Erica Durwood, Sustainable Marin Schools program manager, center, chats with fellow Gabi Wolfe, right, as they and the rest of the Sustainable Marin Schools crew installs a native plant gardent at Rancho Elementary School in Novato, Calif. on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Native flora gets planted at Rancho Elementary School in Novato, Calif. on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. It is part of a native plant garden being installed by non-profit Sustainable Marin Schools. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
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Lisa Clarke, founder of Sustainable Marin Schools, carries plants for a new native plant garden at Rancho Elementary School in Novato, Calif., on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)
Originally Published: April 7, 2025 at 3:44 PM PDT