If you have some extra time on your hands, and you want to make a bunch of new friends, there are plenty of grants out there for school gardens.
Some of them even allow you to take money from Monsanto and use it to teach students about organic gardening.
The bottom line is that generally speaking, our teachers don't have time to write for these grants (they are busy teaching), but the money is there for the taking. The school gardens at McManus Elementary, Chico Junior, Bidwell Jr., and Chico Country Day School have been funded in this manner, as well as a few others that I am probably missing.
Here are a couple of the links I start with when writing for school and community garden grants. Respond to this post if you like some additional ideas.
California Foundation for Agriculture in the Classroom Grant Page
San Diego Master Gardeners Association Calendar of Grants
About Me: Jeremy wears many hats, including substitute teacher, school garden educator, hike leader, youth group advisor, Gardener's Swap Meet coordinator, husband, and father. His lifelong quests include the search for the perfect burrito, and more recently, how to sprout an avocado tree from a pit.
Educators can also secure teacher grants or classroom grants by using the Adopt-A-Classroom program. Teachers don't have to go through a long grant writing process in order to secure funds for classroom materials with the Adopt-A-Classroom model. A teacher simply has to write a classroom description to post on www.AdoptAClassroom.org and then spread the word to all their contacts. The program works because Adopt-A-Classroom has raised over $11 million on behalf of teachers since 1998.
Not to be a buzz-kill, but according to the Adopt-A-Classroom website, 7 Chico teachers have signed up for the program since 1998, netting a total of $15. I see that some other schools have been more successful, so perhaps publicity and networking might play a significant role.