Katie Stagliano
Katie Stagliano, 18, is a high school senior from Summerville, South Carolina. She is the founder of Katie’s Krops, a non-for-profit organization with the mission to empower youth, start and maintain vegetable gardens of all sizes, and donate the harvest to help feed people in need. The idea for Katie’s Krops began when Katie was in the 3rd grade and grew a 40 pound cabbage in her backyard. Katie donated the cabbage to a local soup kitchen where it fed 275 guests. Moved by the experience, she started Katie’s Krops which currently has over 100 youth based gardens in over 30 states.
Katie’s Krops provides funding and support while educating their young growers to ensure that they have the tools to grow successful and environmentally-friendly gardens. In order to provide a sustainable solution to hunger, Katie’s Krops continues to fund the gardens of its ongoing growers year after year. Thanks to leafy greens sponsor WP Rawl, Katie’s Krops is able to offer a summer camp for the Katie’s Krops Growers. During the course of the camp, Katie’s Krops growers come together and learn new and creative growing techniques, participate in a service project, create lasting friendships with fellow growers and receive valuable information on food safety.
Katie has won several awards including America’s top 10 youth volunteers by The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards, Global Teen Leader for ‘Three Dot Dash’ – a global initiative recognizing and supporting the efforts of global teen leaders. In 2012 she became the youngest recipient ever of the Clinton Global Citizen Award for Leadership in Civil Society and is a 2010 Sodexo STOP Hunger Scholar.
Her outstanding achievements have landed Katie on the pages of People Magazine, USA Today and Better Homes and Gardens Country Gardens, to name a few. She has been featured on NBC Nightly News, The Chew, Great American Heroes with Trace Adkins, on Disney Channel and several other talk shows. Katie is one of three principal characters in an award-winning feature length documentary ‘The Starfish Throwers’ – an international cinematic non-fiction film exploring how three of the most compassionate and daringly driven individuals have taken the seemingly hopeless war against hunger into their own hands.
Katie is the author of the award winning children’s book Katie’s Cabbage. She is the designer of the award winning “Eco-Fly” toothbrush distributed by Dr. Fresh. She is a varsity swimmer and runs track.
To read Katie’s Blog and learn more about Katie’s Krops, please visit www.KatiesKrops.com.