Searching for garden grants can be tiresome, especially when there are a million and one other things you could be doing with your time. Join this webinar to hear from KidsGardening, Whole Kids Foundation, Green Our Planet, Big Green, and Captain Planet Foundation—all national youth garden grantmakers—about their upcoming grant opportunities and thoughts on what makes a strong grant proposal.

Brittany DuPree, Green Our Planet📷As the Chief Growth Officer for Green Our Planet, Brittany is excited to lead the organization’s growth to scale impact and ensure the next generation of STEM leaders are diverse in race, gender and equity. She is passionate about her work and firmly believes we can break generational poverty by ensuring education equity and opportunity for all children.

A Las Vegas resident since 1999, Brittany holds two degrees from the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV) – a bachelor’s degree in Communications and Mass Media Studies and a graduate degree in Public Administration with a Non-Profit Management Certification. Brittany has worked within the Las Vegas Non-Profit sector for more than a decade, is a graduate professor at UNLV, and enjoys volunteering her time, sitting on community non-profit boards and committees.

In her spare time, Brittany enjoys working out, volunteering, going to concerts, and spending time with her family. Notably, Brittany is known to live by the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Sarah Lane, KidsGardening’s Program Director, manages multiple grant programs, leads garden installations, and helps the organization with its general fundraising efforts. She grew up in Seattle, WA, and graduated from Washington State University with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish Language. In 2016, Sarah moved to Arkansas to serve with FoodCorps at Conway Public Schools, where her passion for working with students in garden spaces sprouted. She earned her Master of Arts in Teaching at Trinity University in San Antonio in 2019 and moved back to Arkansas to be a lead teacher at Ferncliff Nature School, a nature-based preschool in Little Rock, before becoming Arkansas’s first Farm to School and Early Childhood Education Program Coordinator at the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.

Sarah currently lives in Little Rock, Arkansas, and loves to travel, eat local food, spend time in gardens, and is building her own tiny house!

Stephanie Porto is a Registered Dietitian and holds a master’s degree in Pediatric Nutrition. She has experience working in non-profit and academic research settings and has been with Whole Kids Foundation since 2018. In her role at Whole Kids she manages their core and international grant programs, including the Garden and Bee Grants, provides support on data and financial reporting and manages their intern program. In her free time, she enjoys spending time with her husband, dog, and two cats, taking a walk, and doing yoga.

Ashley Rouse is the director of Project Learning Gardens and Project Giving Gardens at the Captain Planet Foundation. Over the past 15 years, she has worked in food justice, nutrition justice, racial equity, and social transformation in the local food system by being a leader in the farm-to-school movement.

She is passionate about people, the environment, and school gardens is her current connection to fighting environmental racism and contributing to food sovereignty for all.

Dianna Zeegers serves as the Vice President of Programs for Big Green. Prior to working with Big Green, she served the K-12 public education system in Wisconsin for twenty years as a high school teacher, curriculum specialist, and middle school principal. Dianna's educational background includes a BA in Political Science and Public Communication, an MA in Alternative Education, and licenses in Educational Leadership: Curriculum Director and Principal in the states of WI and Colorado.

Meet the Grantmakers: Funding Youth Garden Programs