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Monthly Farm to School News from Growing Minds
June 2026
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Taking Care of Our Pollinators
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 Bees and butterflies are in trouble. How do we know? Well, biologists and community scientists are finding out—over and over again—that there are fewer bees and butterflies in smaller ranges. A quarter of our bumble bees are declining!
This is a serious problem for our food supply. If you like cherries or watermelon, thank a bee. If you munch on sunflower seeds or drink almond milk, a bee made that possible. But the benefits from pollinators cannot be truly measured solely by their value to our food supply. Pollinators are at the heart of a healthy environment and support plant communities that provide food and shelter for many other animals.
Luckily, Asheville, NC (where ASAP's offices are located) is a proud member of the Xerces Society’s Bee City USA program. This means that Asheville has committed to conserving, celebrating, and enhancing habitat for pollinators. You too can help bring the pollinators back!
Pollinator Week 2026 is June 22-28, so help spread the word about what we can do to protect them and get involved any way you like!
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This summer, experience the magic of picking your own fresh fruit right from the tree, which the pollinators were an important part of! U-pick peaches, apples, and raspberries will be available at KT’s Orchard and Apiary in Canton, NC. They also have honey, jam, dried apples, and lots more! You can follow the farm on Instagram. Looking for a u-pick in your neck of the woods? Check out ASAP’s online local food guide!
Here’s KT’s advice on how you can take care of our pollinators:
“One out of every three bites that you take is the result of a pollinator. A lot of people don’t realize that a lot of the pollinators, which would be the female, winter over and start out in the spring, so that’s why it’s so important not to clear your flowerbeds in the fall, wait till late spring to clean up your flower beds. If you want to treat your garden do it after the sun goes down late in the evening so the pollinators won’t be out on your vegetables or your flowers. Remember, they’re just out trying to do what they need to do to survive, grow their colony, and provide us with luscious honey.”
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This month we are focusing on pollinator lessons plans. Here are some of our favorites:
Growing Minds Day by Day is a year-long series of seasonal educational resources designed for families and teachers. Weekly resource lists feature a theme related to food, gardening, or nature. Everyone is buzzing about our Pollinators unit!
KidsGardening Lessons to Grow By: Pollinators (English and Spanish)—In this unit bees, hummingbirds, moths, bats, butterflies, flies, and beetles are a few notable representatives. Each module digs into a different pollination-focused topic and provides instructions for engaging, hands-on lessons and activities. By the end of the unit we hope your young gardeners will understand the intricate relationship between pollinators and flowering plants and also learn to love, respect, and appreciate these hard-working animals.
CEFS Learning Burst: Pollinator Gardens—discover why the world of flittering, fluttering, buzzing, and crawling pollinators is critical to our everyday lives, build science inquiry skills around pollinator identification and behavior, learn how to raise painted lady butterflies and any other caterpillar you might find, and embrace the joy (and not the fear) of these winged wonders. View other CEFS Learning Bursts here.
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Through ASAP’s Appalachian Farms Feeding Families program, Growing Minds connected Clay County Schools with Deal Family Farm. Through this partnership, Clay County Schools sourced 55 gallons of strawberries that students enjoyed in their school meals! To celebrate the collaboration, Growing Minds hosted Clay County Schools nutrition staff at Deal Family Farm for a farm tour and shopping experience at the farm stand. As Jenny Bethel, Clay County School Nutrition Director shared, "Yesterday was amazing. My staff had the best time and they were all so appreciative of this opportunity!" She plans to continue purchasing strawberries, cucumbers, squash, and melons throughout the summer season. We look forward to continuing to support this farm to school partnership next school year!
In addition to supplying fresh, locally grown produce to schools, Deal Family Farm now accepts SNAP benefits and participates in ASAP's Double SNAP for Fruits and Vegetables program, which doubles the value of eligible SNAP purchases on farm-grown produce, making healthy food more accessible to families in Western North Carolina.
Find a farmers market near you to get your own fresh berries and other delicious summer harvests!
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The Pollination Project seeks to unleash goodness and uplift volunteers all over the world. To that end, each year through their pioneering Daily Grant program, they make 365 microgrants of up to $500 each. These grants are designed to kickstart a volunteer’s or grassroots organization’s work and give them the lift their project needs to thrive and grow.
High Mowing Organic Seeds
Are you planning a fundraiser for your school or nonprofit? Selling seeds is a great way to integrate fundraising with lesson plans about sustainability, biology, economy and/or gardening and agriculture. In addition to a wide selection of individual seed packets, they also offer a variety of thoughtfully curated boxed collections.
Fruit Tree Planting Foundation Orchard
Orchard donations are available for recipients who pledge to care for their trees and utilize them for a charitable purpose. Orchards are donated where the harvest will best serve communities for generations.
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Our office is located at 306 West Haywood Street, Asheville, NC 28801. We are open to the public Tuesday through Thursday from 9am to 5 pm. Call 828-236-1282 or email
Growing Minds is a program of ASAP (Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project). ASAP's mission is to help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.
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