Mayor David Maher, left, with Jane Hirschi, executive director of the CitySprouts nonprofit, and Bill Kane of BioMed Realty on Thursday at Commonwealth in Kendall Square.

From CitySprouts, Oct. 27: CitySprouts, a school garden program working with public schools in Cambridge and Boston, has formed an advisory board to help guide the 15-year-old nonprofit organization.

“We need more hands-on learning and experiences for kids in our public schools, and CitySprouts is the way to do it,” said Mayor David P. Maher, welcoming 13 inaugural advisory board members Thursday at the Commonwealth Market in Kendall Square.

The advisory board members are: Angel Babbitt-Harris, of Madison Park Development; Karen Bressler, of Community Servings; Lisa Dobberteen, medical director of school health and public health programs at the city’s Public Health Department; Mahmood Firouzbakht, of Nixon Peabody; Tamirirashe Gambiza, of Cohn Reznick; Holly Fowler, of Northbound Ventures; Tom Hamill, of Redgate Real Estate; Ryan Kim, of Castle Island Partners; Daniel Langenthal, director of experiential education at Brandeis University; Edith Murnane, director of food initiatives with the City of Boston; Nathan Papazian, of Ellevation Education; Brian Swett, chief of environment, energy and open space for the City of Boston; and Petros Voulgaris, of MFS Investment Management.

The CitySprouts program operates in all elementary and middle Cambridge Public Schools and in four Boston Public Schools – the Orchard Gardens Pilot School, David Ellis Elementary, Mather Elementary and Dearborn Middle School.

“CitySprouts has been working successfully in Cambridge for a long time,” CitySprouts board vice president Jeffrey Perrin said. “Our new advisory board will help us take our program to more Boston schools and continue to deepen our work in Cambridge.”

CitySprouts develops, implements and maintains school gardens in collaboration with public school communities. Integrated into the curriculum, CitySprouts gardens give teachers, students and families a hands-on connection to the food cycle, sustainable agriculture and the environment.

“There is ownership and pride that the children feel in the school garden. Cambridge is pleased to see CitySprouts expanding into Boston schools. It’s the kind of program that can really grow in the Greater Boston area,” Maher said

Information about CitySprouts is here.