Started by a small group of students, the Container Gardens Initiative is a student-led project that promotes food equity and sustainability on campus. Credit: Grayson Newbourn | Managing Arts & Life Editor
A small group of students have begun a movement to change the way the Ohio State community thinks about food, one container garden at a time.
The Container Gardens Initiative is a student-led agriculture project that promotes food equity and sustainability by creating raised-bed gardens on campus, according to their Instagram page. Through partnerships with Student Life, the Sustainability Institute and others, their club’s overall goal is growing more than vegetables—but also growing a community.
The group is led by Treg Sibert, a third-year in environment, economy, development and sustainability also known as EEDS, and Nithya Duddella, a third-year in biochemistry.
Sibert said many students lack awareness of where their food comes from, and how much work goes into producing it. Duddella echoed that concern.
“I always had a connection to where a food system started, and the garden in my backyard was an example of ways you could get involved in the food system by producing your own food,” Sibert said.
Duddella said that food insecurity isn’t just a college campus issue, but one that affects communities everywhere.
“I wanted to make sure that we’re being as inclusive as possible,” Duddella said, emphasizing her passion for addressing access barriers and reaching others through the initiative.
After launching a small pilot garden behind Scott House in spring 2024, the initiative has since expanded into a larger, more visible project near Norton and Scott House on North Campus.
With guidance from campus partners, including Aaron Rumbaugh, a landscape architect and Steve Schneider, the landscape maintenance lead, Sibert and Duddella were able to turn their vision into a reality.
“This isn’t just a one and done situation, we’re trying to create a movement for years to come on campus,” Sibert said.
Already with plans for the next garden, Duddella said the location for the 25-2026 school year will be moved to the south lawn of Norton House, where they will have 12 raised garden beds surrounded by pollinator gardens that include over 50 plant species and 250 individual plants.
While the physical gardens are central to the initiative, Duddella said the mission extends beyond growing produce, it’s also about education, accessibility and long-term solutions to food insecurity.
“As of 2020, on the national level, an estimated 3.3 million students are eligible for SNAP benefits, but a lot of students are actually unaware of their eligibility,” Duddella said, referencing the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
A few of the initiative’s upcoming goals, Duddella said, is to design meal kits that are accessible to students with disabilities, and to create a how-to-guide for starting community gardens elsewhere on campus.
Sibert said the group also hopes to engage more public interaction with the gardens themselves.
“If somebody wants to step into the garden and grab a cucumber, nobody’s going to be there to put them in handcuffs,” Sibert said. “That’s what the garden is there for, we want people to use the food.”
Both Sibert and Duddella said how excited they are to have more people join the effort and are encouraged by the enthusiasm they have gotten this far.
Even faculty, including the chefs at Traditions at Scott, have helped maintain the garden this summer while students are away—watering, harvesting and keeping the partners updated.
Sibert said their involvement highlights just how widespread the commitment to sustainability can be on campus.
“With volunteer recruitment, it would make things even easier for us to alleviate some of that pressure, because we’re realizing that other people are just as excited about sustainability and urban agriculture as we are,” Duddella said.
For incoming students looking to join, the initiative is open to all. Their Instagram page features information about upcoming volunteer opportunities and an interactive map that shows what’s growing and how to use it.
This story was updated June 12 at 9:37 a.m. to correct the spelling of an individual’s name.
