Cornell University's Kids Growing Food program is accepting grant applications from elementary and secondary schoolteachers in New York state. The grants will help teachers establish or maintain a food garden on school grounds. The application deadline is Dec. 2.

The goal of the program is to help students appreciate and understand how vegetables get from the farm to the kitchen. The program is funded by a $50,000 grant from New York state.

Elementary or secondary schoolteachers in the state who have not received a previous Kids Growing Food grant are eligible to apply. Grants of up to $500, plus gardening and educational materials, will be awarded. Additionally, all garden-project teachers will receive professional development training at workshops to be held around the region.

Over the past five years, thousands of students at more than 200 schools have helped plant, tend and harvest Kids Growing Food gardens. At urban, suburban and rural schools, food is grown in plots on school grounds, in window boxes, inside classrooms and even on school rooftops. During the last school year, 28 new school gardens were established throughout New York state and eight in New Jersey.

Teachers use the gardens to reinforce subjects taught in the classroom. "By growing food themselves, students learn to appreciate the hard work of farmers and growers. They know food doesn't magically appear on a grocery shelf," says Daryle E. Foster, Cornell senior extension associate and director of the university's Educational Resources Program who created Kids Growing Food in 1998.

For more information or to obtain application materials, visit the web site http://cerp.cornell.edu/kgf/ , call (607) 255-9252 or e-mail kidsgrowingfood@cornell.edu .