Gardening is more than just a hobby for the Druid City Garden Project. The nonprofit organization uses gardening in schools to teach children skills likes math, nutrition and science. The project will further branch out and host its first Garden Party fundraiser with food, drinks and live music Sunday from 5 to 7 p.m. at L&N Train Station.

At the fundraiser, several local restaurants will be paired with local farmers and will serve dishes using that farmer’s produce. Carpe Vino will host a wine tasting for the VIP section, and beer and spirits will be provided by Good People Brewing Company.

The Druid City Garden Project began in 2010 as a way to connect Tuscaloosa residents with locally grown, sustainable food. Students at University Place and Stillman Heights Elementary School work in the garden twice a week and sell their produce at subsidized prices at their weekly on-site farm stand.

For DCGP executive director Lindsay Turner, the project’s success is apparent in the positive, enthusiastic response from both students and administrators. It has also succeeded in getting children excited to try new, unconventional foods. In the past, students have even declared Kohlrabi, also known as a German turnip, as their favorite vegetable.

“The biggest indicator [of our success] is that the administration, teachers and school board are really enthusiastic, and they want us to expand into other schools,” Turner said. “The biggest thing for me personally is to see all these kids at such a young age get so excited and willing to try different foods.”

According to Turner, DCGP teaches children more than just the practical aspects of gardening. Students learn about nutrition and even job skills such as marketing. They also get the satisfaction of seeing the fruits of their labor in the most literal sense.

There are several opportunities for University of Alabama students to get involved with DCGP by volunteering through their website. Volunteers can work to maintain the garden during regular garden hours or work with children during education days or at the farm stand, helping with nutrition programs and cooking demonstrations.

“We’re teaching them accounting and how to market the produce they’ve grown, so we encourage UA students to mentor the kids during these programs,” Turner said.

Following the Garden Party on Sunday, there will be a free screening at the Bama Theatre of “Eating Alabama,” a documentary film by DCGP co-founder and UA professor Andrew Grace. The film is about the year-long experiment during which he and his wife Rashmi ate only food produced in Alabama.

Grace’s experience in “Eating Alabama” made him aware of the disparity between perceptions about agriculture in Alabama and the reality of Alabama farmers’ struggles.

“I think that most people in Alabama have a sense that we come from an agricultural state, and we’re very closely connected to agriculture and the land,” Grace said. “And the reality that there are very few farmers left and that the farmers that are left have a really hard time making a living rubs a little bit against our ideas about this place.”

The idea for DCGP grew out of Andrew and Rashmi’s local eating project as a way to the make up for lack of education about food and its origins.

“We started to realize that there’s not a lot of education about where food comes from and one way we thought we could help affect change in that regard was to start the school garden,” Grace said.

Grace hopes this fundraiser will encourage restaurants to buy produce from local farmers and start a conversation that will make people more mindful about from where the food they buy actually comes.

“When you have an event that’s focused on the producers, the people that grow the food, then hopefully when the people who attend the event eat this really wonderful food, they’ll maybe think more about where they’re buying: from the market or local farmers,” Grace said. Tickets to the Garden Party are available at www.druidcitygardenproject.org. Student tickets are $25, general admission is $35 in advance, $40 at the door. VIP tickets are $50 and are reserved for ages 21 and up.