In Kansas City, lunch grows on trees that schoolchildren planted themselves

At Kansas City Academy, students wander out at lunchtime and pick jujubes and other fruit straight from their own school orchard, planted with teacher Janet Porter and a local nonprofit called The Giving Grove. The grove model has quietly spread: some 14,000 fruit and nut trees in 17 cities, from Seattle to Atlanta, in almost 850 small community orchards producing more than 2.5 million pounds of fruit and nuts a year — all free for neighbours to pick. Volunteers do almost all the work, turning vacant lots and schoolyards into food that shows up every autumn without anyone having to buy it.

SDG 2 · Zero hunger — Mechanism: community action