Summer school children at Rebecca Boone Elementary last week watched excitedly as Dr. Janelle Stanek and visitor Bridgette Childress unveiled some new technology that will let the kids learn to be indoor vegetable growers, and hopefully start up a miniature business.

Three tower gardens have been purchased by the Warren County R-III School District, in partnership with the Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce, using a grant from the Missouri After School Network. Stanek, the school district’s coordinator for summer school and Care Day programs, said the funding created an opportunity for partnership with Warrenton’s business community.

“It’s a $5,000 grant for learning entrepreneurship. Our goal is to start a gardening lesson with the kids, with the hopes of starting a market. We’re starting with hydroponic planting using tower gardens with no soil,” Stanek said.

Resembling tall vases with extra electronics, the tower gardens are upright tubes with bulbous bottoms, with vine-like vertical lights hanging from stalks at the top. Open baskets along the tube hold seed pods that receive nutrient-enriched water from internal irrigation pumps. Once plants start to grow, they’ll drape the outside of the towers with herbs, beans, cucumbers, or all manner of other produce options.

Stanek said students in summer school, Care Day, and after school programs at all three R-III elementary schools will have a chance to use the tower gardens as a learning opportunity.

“The kids will be planting, growing and learning all about the life cycles of the plants, but we’re also hoping with our produce harvest to be able to get it out into the community,” Stanek explained. “We say ‘sell,’ but it will probably be more of a donation, where the kids learn about the money sense of it as well.”

That’s where two important community partnerships come in. The school district is being helped to learn about tower gardens and healthy plants by Bridgette Childress, owner of Better Health With Bridgette. Then, once some produce is ready, members of the Warrenton Area Chamber of Commerce will come to teach the kids about selling it as a small business.

“The whole aspect of health, and sustainability, and living a long, clean life is my passion. Anywhere I can help with that is a no-brainer,” said Childress, who has also helped other school districts start tower garden programs.

Jan Olearnick, director of the Warrenton Chamber, said the Chamber helped the school district secure the grant for the tower gardens, and that member business owners are eager to be involved with helping students learn about marketing the produce they grow.

“The little kids will learn in a ‘You give me a nickel, I’ll give you a piece of gum,’ sort of way. But the big kids, they can really get into the budget of all of it. Even a business plan can be done through this,” Olearnick explained. “Our mission is to enhance the community and its residents. As part of that, we have forever been involved in the schools in whatever capacity we can.”

Olearnick added that the Chamber has also launched a program to help match high school students with local internships or job shadowing opportunities, and is hoping to continue building better connections between students and the business community.