Project Hort: Where Giving Meets Growing
Middle and high schoolers at Gardens on Spring Creek combine environmental stewardship with philanthropy, creating community projects through the Project Hort summer program.
The Gardens on Spring Creek in Fort Collins, Colorado, offers students a rare and powerful opportunity: to combine a passion for the natural world with the principles of philanthropy. Through the Project Heart framework, the Gardens created Project Hort — a summer enrichment program that equips middle and high school students with the tools to identify community needs, develop solutions, and give back in ways that are both creative and lasting.
Students in the program don’t just learn about environmental stewardship — they practice it with purpose, designing and executing projects that make their communities better and brighter. Whether through grant writing, community outreach, or hands-on environmental projects, Project Hort participants graduate from the program as young philanthropists ready to take on the world.