Learn and Grow

One Dallas-area school won a free garden from Sprouts Farmers Market

Sprouts Farmers Market will work in 24 cities to provide hands-on gardening and nutrition information for school kids.

Photo courtesy of Sprouts Farmers Market

Sprouts Farmers Market is seeking submissions from Dallas schools to score their own free garden.

The Arizona-based grocery chain is offering to build school gardens in 24 cities across the U.S., one per city, and is inviting community members to nominate their favorite school.

Only schools located in states where Sprouts has stores will be considered.

UPDATE 8-30-2023: Mitchell Elementary School in Dallas was selected to receive a new school garden as part of the Sprouts Foundations’ 24 Gardens in 24 Hours in 24 Communities campaign – a $500,000 investment in local schools across the country for nutrition education. Selected schools receive a $15,000-$20,000 construction grant to build a new learning garden or refresh an existing garden space on campus.

The garden will be built by volunteers on Saturday Sept. 23.

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The program is part of Sprouts' initiative to get kids involved in healthy food, including growing vegetables at school and then learning how to prepare them in cooking classes.

The application is available to parents, teachers, faculty, or any adult with a personal connection to their nominee, whether that’s a personal relationship or just status as a neighbor.

Criteria include:

Familiarity with the school’s current practices
Merit: Why does the school deserve a garden
A commitment to outdoor learning
Identification of a caretaker who can oversee and maintain the garden

The deadline to apply is April 26, at sprouts.com.

They'll announce winners in July, then organize a volunteer day to build the gardens in each city on Saturday, September 16.

Sprouts Healthy Communities Foundation has been pursuing this goal at schools and via community grants since 2015. The resulting programs have taught more than 1.5 million kids about gardening, and 900,000 in schools about nutrition.

There are currently 27 Sprouts locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area including four recent openings within the past year at Las Colinas, Grand Prairie, Dallas / Hillside Village, and Dallas Trinity Mills.

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Texas shocks as America's No. 3 least safe state in 2026 report

Photo by Hiroshi Kimura on Unsplash

Texas ranks as the 48th "safest" state — out of 50.

While no state is invulnerable, some do more to protect their residents than others. And a new study has declared Texas one of the five least safe states in America.

WalletHub's "Safest States in America (2026)" report examined all 50 states for their emergency preparedness and for residents' personal and residential, financial, workplace, and road safety. Factors that weighed into the rankings include specific crime rates per capita, the share of the population that is uninsured, road quality ratings, workplace injury statistics, and more.

Texas ranked at the bottom of the list as the 48th "safest" state — or the third least safe state. It's joined by several other Southern states, like Mississippi (No. 50), Louisiana (No. 49), Florida (No. 47), and Arkansas (No. 46).

According to WalletHub, Texas specifically ranks third to last in the nationwide "emergency preparedness" category, which was determined based on the prevalence of climate disasters causing $1 billion or more in damages from 1980-2024, and the loss amount resulting from those disasters.

The Lone Star State also ranked 40th (or 10th worst) across three safety categories: personal and residential safety, financial safety, and road safety. The report additionally found that Texas has the highest rate of uninsured residents nationally.

Texas' "workplace safety" was the state's highest-ranking category, landing 30th nationally.

Additional rankings that determined Texas' overall safety include:

No. 30 – Assaults per capita
No. 32 – Fatal occupational injuries per 100,000 full-time workers
No. 32 – Sex offenders per capita
No. 35 – Murders and non-negligent manslaughters per capita
No. 36 – Fatalities per 100 million vehicle miles of travel
No. 41 – Loss amounts from climate disasters per capita

According to the report, the five safest states in America are all located in the Northeast. Vermont leads as the country's safest state in 2026, followed by Massachusetts (No. 2), Maine (No. 3), New Hampshire (No. 4), and Connecticut (No. 5).

Though every state has varying levels of safety, WalletHub analyst Chip Lupo asserted that the safest places in the U.S. categorically invest in protecting their residents. Top-ranking states have low crime rates and diligently maintain their road infrastructure, and other states that prioritize their residents' safety have "strong economies and job markets that prevent people from falling into dangerous financial situations."

"[The safest states in America] have high levels of occupational safety and disaster preparedness, too," Lupo said. "In addition, states are made safer by efforts that individual residents take, such as forming a neighborhood watch or working in firefighting and EMT jobs at high rates."

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