Our Group History: Home Grown Kids was originally founded in 2001 as “The Encouragers” home school group. Ten families, belonging to the Encouragers Sunday School class at First Baptist Church of Oviedo, came together in order to do activities and field trips together. The name was immediately changed to “Ten Friends.” This sufficed while the group was still small, but in 2003 we quickly grew to 30 families and our name was changed to “Home Grown Kids”. Our navy blue t-shirts proudly display our name and group verse, John 15:5 - “I am the vine, you are the branches…apart from me you can do nothing.” In 2007 we legally filed our name as “Home Grown Kids Oviedo” with the state of Florida. In 2010 we incorporated under the name of “Home Grown Kids of Central Florida, Inc.,” and filed to do business as “Home Grown Kids” in the state of Florida. We also hold a 501c7 status as a non-profit social club and exist for the purpose of supporting and encouraging our membership in their homeschool journey.
Worthy to Note: HGK is not affiliated with any particular church. The students in Home Grown Kids range from preschool through twelfth grade. While we fellowship often through planned events, field trips, clubs and other ways, we are not a co-op (co-operative program where families share the responsibilities of teaching classes to a group of students). Most of our activities take place in the Oviedo and Winter Springs areas though our member families live throughout Central Florida.
