A Groundbreaking New Scholarship Kicks Off the 2027 Application Season

GCA Expands Scholarship Opportunities with a Focus on Regenerative Agriculture

September 30, 2026

Digging into the second century of GCA scholarships, the 2027 application season kicks off this fall with a first-ever scholarship focused on advancing regenerative agriculture to help address climate challenges and strengthen global food security. It arrives at a transformative moment and dovetails with The Garden Club of America position paper Agriculture, Soil, Seed Diversity, and Food Security.

Emphasizing healthy, sustainable farming, the new Spoldi-Stewart Agriculture Scholarship—GCA’s 30th individually named award—expands the opportunities GCA offers to students pursuing environment-related fields of study ranging from botany and horticulture to urban forestry and coastal wetlands among others. Open to undergraduate students through PhD candidates, the inaugural $5,000 agriculture scholarship will be awarded in March as a part of the Class of 2027.

Applications open now through January 15, 2027 via the GCA website. We hope to surpass milestones set by the Class of 2026 when a record $604,000 was distributed to 130 individuals. Meet our current scholars and dive into their fascinating work across the US and further afield in the annual Scholars Report.

Help our roots grow deeper and spread further than ever before by alerting students, interns, and other young leaders to this groundbreaking new agriculture opportunity and all our scholarships. Visit the Scholarship webpage for handy informational tools or to request more details, and follow gcascholarships on Instagram.