Farm to School

Our Farm to School programming is a new focus for our district. Farm to school is an all-inclusive strategy that connects student learning and experiences in the Classroom, Cafeteria, and the Community. The goal of farm to school programming is to help students work toward a lifelong positive relationship with food while supporting a more just food system. The strategies used to achieve this are: serving healthy local food in schools, improving student nutrition, providing hands-on food systems-based learning activities, and establishing relationships between community partners, schools, and students. Farm to school supports youth in connecting the dots of where their food comes from and how their food choices affect their bodies, the environment, and their communities at large. 

Our students participate in monthly taste tests to introduce students to local products and producers. We are increasing our local foods prepared in the cafeteria as well as starting seedlings to plant in our school gardens and greenhouse. In addition, we are offering a cooking club to students where we have cooked and eaten beet hummus, carrot salad, apple sauce and vegetable soup. It is amazing to see the students engaged in this hands-on learning as they develop lifelong skills to nourish themselves.  

We view our farm to school program as fostering the next generation of eaters that are fully engaged in our local food system and understand their place in that system.