The Kramer Elementary PTA has applied for a $50,000 grant from Clorox’s Power a Bright Future campaign to benefit school programs around the country. Kramer is the only Dallas ISD nominee and plans to use the money to rebuild the school’s learning garden.

The kicker? Recipients are chosen based on the number of online votes they receive. Voting begins today and runs through Dec. 9. You can vote every day. Five winners will be announced in January. View Kramer’s program profile here and vote.

Here’s the description of Kramer’s plan for the new garden:

Our old garden, despite our efforts on a small budget, has fallen into disrepair and is unusable. We need to renovate and expand it to include fifteen 4 X 20 foot raised vegetable beds, new walkways and patios to prevent weed overgrowth. Our new garden will be a living classroom that lends itself to life science and earth science experiments which will extend the curriculum beyond the classroom and textbooks. Numerous math activities like measurement, weight, volume, capacity, area and perimeter can be applied so easily to the garden. Content areas such as reading, writing, art, health and social studies will also be tied into lesson plans with the garden. With eighteen years of weathering, erosion, and bermuda grass overgrowth our vegetable beds have completely deteriorated, some are without borders at all. We would love for our wonderful teachers and students to teach, and to learn, in a redesigned first rate garden where we could plant many “seeds” for learning.

This $50,000 grant would allow us to rebuild our garden, and to add a greenhouse, nature trail, herb garden, wildflower field, rainwater barrels and a chicken yard with coup. The impact of this grant will be so great in allowing students from kindergarten through 5th grade to expand their learning in many ways. They would be able to collect fresh eggs and produce to sell in their own school farmer’s market which would teach them about commerce, agriculture, and provide them with many other learning experiences. Each class will also come up with a special name for their garden bed and select what will be planted each season. This grant would boost school pride as each class would get the whole family involved with the care and maintenance for each of their vegetable beds. We would like to encourage fresh produce in the diets of our students and their families. That is the biggest “seed” we want to plant.

Correction: DISD’s Dallas Environmental Science Academy also has applied for the Clorox grant.