SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) announced today a $2 million grant to The Kitchen Community (TKC) to help bring hundreds of innovative, outdoor Learning Garden Classrooms to thousands of students in underserved communities nationwide. The contribution represents the largest corporate donation to the organization.

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Wells Fargo Team Member Dan Sweeney joined The Kitchen Community to help Chicago Public School students plant a new Learning Garden at Wendell Smith Elementary School. The bank donated $2 million to the nonprofit to build hundreds more gardens across the country. (Photo: Business Wire)

The philanthropic endeavor also furthers Wells Fargo’s 2020 Environmental Goals to provide $65 million in contributions by 2020 to foster resilient communities, clean technology and innovation, and environmental education.

The Kitchen Community, founded in 2011 by Chef Hugo Matheson and Kimbal Musk, reaches 200,000 students every school day with nearly 400 outdoor Learning Garden classrooms in Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Memphis, Tenn. “The bank’s contribution empowers TKC to reach its 2020 impact goal of 1000 schools across 10 cities to reach hundreds of thousands more children in low-income areas,” said Tighe Hutchins, national director of The Kitchen Community.

“We’re thrilled to work with Wells Fargo to bring more Learning Gardens to kids across America,” Hutchins said. “We’ll be able to build more Learning Gardens in more cities that connect kids to real food, the natural world, and teach them about a key environmental issue of our time: where their food comes from.”

In addition to introducing fresh, healthy food to children, the outdoor classrooms serve as edible gardens designed to increase academic achievement, and drive community engagement. Students, grades K-8, apply math and science concepts while planting, maintaining, and harvesting their produce. The Learning Garden beds – customized, modular, and raised – feature seating and shade, making them conducive to teaching and learning.

“Without involving school gardens in primary education, we cannot expect to cultivate the citizens of tomorrow whom will improve the health of our city ecosystems,” said Musk, CEO and co-founder of The Kitchen Community.

“We are proud to partner with Wells Fargo in promoting a message of environmental stewardship, community engagement, and opportunity for underserved, urban students,” Musk added.

Since 2005, Wells Fargo has integrated sustainability initiatives into its culture, funding innovative organizations that foster environmental literacy and a new generation of sustainability leaders.

“The Kitchen Community’s program is already having a huge impact and we are excited to work alongside the organization to reach even more students and communities,” said Ashley Grosh, vice president, environmental philanthropy manager for Wells Fargo.

Through its environmental education grant-making, Wells Fargo promotes scalable community outreach and education programs, targeting low-to-moderate-income communities and Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) initiatives. The bank’s larger environmental commitment also focuses on improving its own operational efficiency, financing renewable energy projects and advancing clean technologies.

About The Kitchen Community

The Kitchen Community (TKC) was established in 2011 by Hugo Matheson and Kimbal Musk. TKC believes in a future where every child has the opportunity to play, learn, and grow in healthy communities. To create healthier environments in underserved schools, TKC builds Learning Gardens, thriving vegetable gardens and hands-on outdoor classrooms. Through our Learning Gardens and our school-based programming, TKC seeks to increase academic engagement and achievement, strengthen the bond between schools and their communities, and increase kids’ knowledge of and preference for fresh fruits and vegetables. Today there are hundreds of Learning Gardens in schools around the United States reaching nearly 200,000 students every day. For more information, please visit http://tkc.org or follow on Twitter @TheKitchenComm and Instagram @TheKitchenCommunity.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,500 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 42 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 271,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 25 on Fortune’s 2017 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.

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