Price Chopper partners with Dole and the Captain Planet Foundation

May 2, 2019 – Lee Summit, MO - - Today select teachers, administrators and students joined representatives from Price Chopper, Dole Packaged Foods and the Captain Planet Foundation in celebrating the new Project Learning Garden at Hawthorn Hill Elementary School. The Captain Planet Project Learning Garden is an effective outdoor learning space for students to engage in inquiry-driven, project-based learning across all disciplines.

Hawthorn Hill Elementary School was awarded the Project Learning Garden last fall after entering a special promotion sponsored by Dole and Price Chopper. The school was one of two winners in the “Learning Garden Grant,” contest that offered schools in Price Chopper’s service areas the chance to win the installation of a learning garden.

The school received a full working garden that includes five raised beds, with accompanying soil and seedlings. It also included lesson kits filled with supplies, fully-equipped garden cooking cart, and strategies for summer garden maintenance. The Learning Garden program provides a context for multidisciplinary learning, ranging from nutrition and science to social studies, math and language arts. Students benefit by expanding their palates, taste-testing healthy foods, and learning about food origins.

“Dole understands the importance of teaching children and adults alike the benefits of incorporating fruits and vegetables into their diet, whether they are enjoying fresh produce from their learning garden, or a healthy Dole snack,” said Larry White, Vice President, Sales, Dole Packaged Foods. “By partnering with the Captain Planet Foundation and Price Chopper, we are helping more people learn about and develop healthy habits.”

“Anything can be taught in the context of the garden, and hands-on learning supports student understanding of natural systems, food origins, and healthy eating,” explained Leesa Carter, executive director of Captain Planet Foundation. “Captain Planet Foundation is dedicated to nurturing the next generation of environmental stewards, and ensuring they are armed with an understanding of the natural world in which they live. We are thrilled to be working with Price Chopper and Dole to provide Hawthorn Hill Elementary School with a CPF Learning Garden!”

“At Price Chopper, we’ve been passionate about giving back to the communities we serve for as long as we’ve been in business, and supporting education has always been a top priority,” said, Jessica Crozier Price Chopper spokesperson. “We couldn’t be more excited to play a role in bringing these learning gardens to life for the winning schools.”

About Dole Packaged Foods

Dole Packaged Foods, LLC, is a world leader in growing, sourcing, distributing and marketing fruit and healthy snacks. Dole sells a full line of packaged shelf stable fruit, frozen fruit, dried fruit, and juices. The company focuses on four pillars of sustainability: water management, carbon footprint, soil conservation and waste reduction. For more information, please visit dolesunshine.com or dolesunshine.com/doing-good.

About Price Chopper

Price Chopper’s 52 Kansas City stores are locally owned by the Ball, Cosentino, McKeever, and Queen

families, all of whom live in Kansas City and oversee store operations on a daily basis. For 40 years, the

owners and employees of Price Chopper have been committed to providing the highest quality products

and top-of-the-line customer service to the thousands of customers they serve every day. For more

information, please visit www.mypricechopper.com.

About Captain Planet Foundation (CPF)

Based on the critically acclaimed animated series Captain Planet and the Planeteers, CPF was co-founded in 1991 by media mogul Ted Turner and producer Barbara Pyle. Since then, the Captain Planet Foundation has played a critical role in helping to ensure that the next generation of business leaders and policy makers are environmentally literate citizens who leverage technology and information to manage and protect the air, land, and water upon which all life depends.

CPF is a grant-making foundation that has funded over 2,000 hands-on environmental education projects with schools and non-profits that serve children in all 50 U.S. states and in 23 countries internationally. More than 1.2 million children have directly participated in and benefited from these educational projects. In addition to its Small Grants Program, the Captain Planet Foundation also operates the following programs: Project Learning Garden, the Leadership Center, SAGES, Planeteer Clubs, and several other science education initiatives that exploit the intersections between technology, innovation, the environment and personal action. For more information: www.captainplanetfoundation.org.