StartUpRoots empowers students to develop their potential and challenges them to build a more equitable and sustainable future by providing a platform for growing food, ideas, and responsibility for the earth’s limited resources.    

Founded in 2015, StartUpRoots’ first priority was to address the needs of hungry school children in one of Jerusalem’s poorest neighborhoods. While private funds had been raised to provide what might be the students’ only meal of the day, the white rice, canned peas, and rolls with chocolate spread weren’t nutritionally sufficient. The students not only needed more nutritious food, but also to develop the knowledge and skills they would require to lead healthy, sustainable lives.

When the principal told us that graduates returned to the school years after graduating to obtain help with wedding expenses, we realized that we needed to transform handouts to hands-on education. We converted a dilapidated schoolyard into a 100 sq meter hydroponic farm. Growing 1500 vegetables a month, students learned the importance of nutrients for both the plants and themselves.

Word spread and soon other principals and teachers wanted to “green” their schools. As few schools have the space for a 100 sq meter greenhouse, we needed to develop a farm that could literally fit anywhere. In the hallway of a school that serves just over 100 students, StartUpRoots designed a vertical system that could grow 120 plants per meter, per month. Students became active learners, researching plant needs, applying the scientific method to growing sprouts, microgreens, leafy greens and herbs. They documented plant growth and reflected on their own growth. While they enjoyed the fruits of their labors, they also learned about entrepreneurship. Applying lessons from the entrepreneurship curriculum,  students developed new products, such as the hydro-shake, a healthy drink they learned to advertise and promote to other students in the school.

Next, we developed a commercial farm, enabling Yeshiva students to produce hundreds of vegetables for sale to local residents. In a 22 sq meter space, in a 2000-year-old room in the Old City, devoting just a few hours a week, students learned how to produce and market a variety of fresh, kosher, chemical pesticide-free vegetables. The vegetables reached our customers within minutes of being harvested.

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Hydroponics uses 90% less water than traditional farming, eliminates the need for chemical pesticides, reduces waste, and saves precious land. Food grown locally, in a controlled environment reduces the carbon footprint and makes fresh vegetables available all year long. 

StartUpRoots provides students with the tools to develop skills, knowledge, and a love of learning that will engage them to be responsible team players in a world that demands cooperation, consideration, and collaboration. Within our multidisciplinary curriculum, we invite students to find what they enjoy, develop what they are good at, appreciate the input of others, and focus on what our world needs. Students connect Jewish tradition with social justice, health, environmentalism and more. There is no greater pleasure than watching students grow by growing!

Ben Gurion University of the Negev