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Partner Feature: Springdale Elementary School
Rooted in Food Justice, Growing
Community Change
When students at Springdale Park Elementary School (SPARK) learn about food justice, it’s not just a classroom lesson — it’s a lived experience that connects directly to their community. Just around the corner from campus, Intown Cares has become a natural partner in helping students understand how food insecurity and homelessness affect their neighbors and how their own actions can make a difference.
“Intown Cares’ proximity makes our food justice work authentic and meaningful,” says Kristin Siembieda, SPARK’s STEAM Program Specialist. “Our students can see that hunger isn’t an abstract issue — it exists right here in our city.”
From Classroom Lessons to Community Action
SPARK students explore food equity, waste, and sustainability through hands-on projects. They grow crops like kale, collards, peppers, and tomatoes in their rooftop garden and AeroGardens, track donation data in their STEAM journals, and brainstorm ways to reduce cafeteria food waste with partners like Helping Hands Ending Hunger.
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These lessons don’t stop at the school doors. “Students bring conversations home, sparking family discussions about healthy food choices, recycling, and helping neighbors,” Siembieda explains.
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One moment especially stands out: during the school’s Garden Lights fundraiser, students proudly displayed graphs showing how much food had been donated and how many meals were made possible. “Many children said it was the first time they realized they could directly help fight hunger in their city,” Siembieda recalls.
Students as Changemakers
For SPARK, learning about food insecurity and homelessness in Atlanta builds empathy, civic responsibility, and problem-solving skills. Their rooftop garden — complete with an apiary that supports pollination and provides a living science lab — is central to this mission, linking science, technology, engineering, arts, and math to real-world issues.
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Intown Cares’ Senior Director of Development, Tanya Frazee, notes how powerful this connection has been. “Each year, students raise funds during their Garden Lights event by sharing items they’ve grown or made: leafy greens, pickled peppers, handmade soaps, and even cyanotype greeting cards. Last year alone, they raised more than $6,000. This spring, they’re planning to add a putt-putt golf fundraiser event to further support our work.”
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Students also donate leftover cafeteria food, such as unopened milk cartons, and participate in educational sessions with Intown Cares about food insecurity and hunger in Atlanta.
A Student's Perspective
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For fifth-grader Aidan, the experience has been eye-opening.
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What surprised you most when learning about food insecurity?
“I learned that we could grow food without soil using the AeroGarden, and that could help people who need it.” -
Why do you think it matters for kids to get involved in solving hunger?
“It will help me in the future. It makes me think about budgeting and making smart choices.” -
How does volunteering or donating food make you feel?
“It feels good to help people in the community.”
Cultivating a Culture of Community​
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For SPARK, this partnership is about more than projects; it’s about culture. “Our work with Intown Cares gives students a real-world problem to solve: food insecurity,” Siembieda says. “It shows them that STEAM learning isn’t just about equations or experiments but about applying knowledge to community challenges.”
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That authenticity is helping SPARK progress toward STEAM certification while modeling for students how learning can change lives.
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And the impact is felt beyond the school walls. “Supporting Intown Cares means supporting our own neighbors,” Siembieda emphasizes. “When schools, families, and organizations come together, we show children that community problems can be solved collectively with compassion and creativity.”
