Students tend to the crops at the West Liberty Elementary School garden in August of 1951. The school garden program began at Brookline Elementary School in 1916. West Liberty School, also located in Brookline, and Beechwood Elementary in Beechview, soon followed. The highly successful program was later adopted by most Pittsburgh Public Schools.

The fresh vegetables were used for school lunches and the excess produce was sold to raise funds and donated to local food kitchens. In 1939, when the present-day West Liberty School was built, the school began the garden plot shown above. The school garden program continued into the late-1950s.