Farm to School Conference

Hello School Gardeners!

I was struck through the heart with a dart at the 6th National  Farm to Cafeteria Conference held in Burlington, Vermont on August 3-6th. I’d finally found my tribe: 800 educators, farmers, cooks, parents, school garden planners, politicians, advocates, artists, foodies – all dedicated to feeding children healthy food. Since children spend most of their time at school, it makes perfect sense to integrate gardens into their daily routine. The focus of this conference was all about sharing fresh ideas for building a more vibrant community around food in schools. Themes ranged from replacing the box cutter for a chefs knife in the school cafeteria by teaching cooking from scratch methods,  how to train kitchen staff to enjoy cooking from the garden, and how to connect local farms to the lunch menu.

Executive Director of National Farm to School Network,  Anupama Joshi spoke eloquently on the progress she has seen since the first conference held in Seattle, WA with 250 attendees. In her introductory speech, she encouraged everyone to dig deeper into this movement, make useful connections that will allow the work to unfold, and to learn something new that will facilitate change in our schools. Deb Eschmeyer, Co-founder and Director for Policy and Partnerships, FoodCorps wrapped up the conference by sharing that she still maintains a family farm, while growing a large non-profit organization that connect kids to real food and helps them grow up healthy through a mentoring structure. With the USDA announcing 5 million in planning grants for school gardens, along with federal and state funding for farm to school staff in public school across the US, the time for creating this connection has never been stronger.