Kindergarten Edible Gardens & Mentoring Project Method Health promotion workers from Lower Hume PCP, Seymour Health and Nexus assisted kindergartens to implement sustainable edible gardens by providing them with:  grant and funding opportunities,  gardening mentors and mentoring community or gardening groups contacts,  edible garden how to kits and Sustainable Gardening Australia quarterly newsletters,  gardening workshop ideas and links to Smiles 4 Miles program. Results Out of the 8 cluster kindergartens:  7 now have sustainable edible gardens.  Flowerdale Kindergarten received gardening supplies as part of the Lower Hume Street Harvest Project.  4 received gardening mentors / mentoring groups including: Seymour East kindergarten from Seymour Community Garden; Flowerdale kindergarten from Flowerdale Primary Schools ‘kids teaching kids’ program; Wallan Kindergarten from Wallan Home Harvest and Wallan Environmental Group; and Wellington Street Kindergarten from attending families.  All 8 found the edible garden how to kits and Sustainable Gardening Australia newsletters very valuable and will continue to utilise them for maintaining their gardens and curriculum ideas.  Wallan Kindergarten has run scarecrow making and propagating seedling workshops with children, assisted by Wallan Home Harvest and Lower Hume PCP.  4 have linked their edible garden with the smiles 4 miles program to educate children about growing, cooking and eating healthy food.  6 found this project had a positive impact on their edible garden and services ability to provide a healthy environment for children and their families. Conclusion This project was successful and showed that kindergarten settings can educate and promote healthy environments, but they require community involvement and strong partnerships to sustain these environments. In the partnership will build on this work, by assisting with a connected gardens project. This project aims to further strengthen garden sustainability by networking all kindergarten, primary school, community gardens and community groups to share expertise, funding opportunities, resources and labour. Challenges  Initially the project started in October 2013 and was scheduled to be implemented in second term However due to renovations at 5 of the cluster kindergartens and high staff turnover it was extended and finalised in June  During this period mentors, mentoring groups and the 8 cluster kindergartens experienced limited grant opportunities, significant funding cuts, governance structure changes, staff turnover and time restraints. This does impact on the ongoing sustainability of the gardens. Author Jaimie Poorter Project Partners Seymour Health Mitchell Shire Council Nexus Primary Health Smiles 4 Miles Project Worker (LHPCP) Project Aim Implementation and further development of sustainable kindergarten edible gardens, gardening workshops and mentoring programs within the 8 Mitchell Shire cluster kindergartens. As well as to link the gardens with the Smiles 4 Miles program. Wallan Kindergarten Scarecrow & Seedling Workshop Background This project relates to health promotion work undertaken by the partnership under objective 2 healthy eating, an action of strategy 2.2 within the Lower Hume PCP Integrated Health Promotion Plan This action was to support the establishment or development of community/edible gardens in identified communities. Thus, strengthening partnerships with local councils and community groups to create supportive environments that promote culturally valued healthy food. Edible Gardening How To Resource Kits Planning  Health promotion workers from Seymour Health & Nexus had initial meetings with Mitchell Shire Council and then the 8 cluster kindergartens (located in Flowerdale, Seymour, Pyalong, Broadford, Kilmore, Wandong and Wallan (2) )to determine their current edible garden status and what challenges these kindergarten settings had with running a sustainable edible garden.  From these meetings it was determined that 6 out of the 8 cluster kindergartens had small edible gardens and 7 kindergartens faced challenges with sustaining edible gardens, due to lack of gardening knowledge or skills, time restraints on maintaining the garden, funding and high staff turnover.