Volunteer Gardening in the Redondo Beach Unified School District

The CEO of Beryl Capital Management, David Witkin is also a Beryl Heights Elementary School parent who serves on the board of the Redondo Beach Unified School District (RBUSD) as vice president. In this role, David Witkin has orchestrated a number of well-received initiatives including the college-counselor-led “College Savings Nights” seminars and has successfully guided efforts to pass the ballot Measure K, which allowed funding plans to go forward. 

RBUSD maintains a volunteer-driven community presence and more than 150 people recently turned out to pull weeds, replant seeds, and harvest vegetables across nine campus gardens district wide. The day of volunteer activity was organized in tandem with Beach Cities Health District, which helped launch the Live Well Kids and school gardens programs in a decade ago. 

The long term benefits of the programs, which focus on reading food labels and learning about nutrition, are well documented, with student obesity rates declining from 20 percent to 8 percent over their duration. Among the volunteers who turned out at the gardening day at grade schools were local restaurant workers who created a summer salad using freshly picked basil and zucchini. The effort was described as vital in helping kids visualize the “garden to plate” process and really understand where their food comes from.