Somerville Farm to School Project

Students at Argenziano, East Somerville Community School and Winter Hill Community Innovation School tasted ripe, fresh picked strawberries, organic oranges, crunchy celery as well as many other fresh fruits and vegetables this school year as part of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP).  All students at the three schools were offered a fresh fruit or vegetable as a midmorning snack Monday through Friday.  Students gushed with enthusiasm about the program and voraciously consumed the fresh fruits and vegetables on a daily basis!   We are excited to announce that the FFVP will be continued at Argenziano, ESCS and WHCIS during the 2014-2015 school year!   The goals of the FFVP are to establish lifelong healthy eating habits and to fight childhood obesity since it promotes healthy eating habits among students by introducing a variety of produce on a regular basis, giving students an opportunity to try fruits and vegetables to

It's strawberry season in Massachusetts!  Yum! Strawberry field at a local farm. Strawberry plant with a beautiful, ripe berry! Let's celebrate but making a delicious and nutritious salad. This simple salad requires two main ingredients plus a dressing. Strawberry Spinach Salad Salad ingredients: 1/2 lb baby spinach or large leaf spinach cut into bite sized pieces 1 cup strawberries, sliced optional: 1/3 cup walnuts or almonds, rough chopped optional: 2 ounces feta cheese or goat cheese crumbles optional: substitute half or all of the spinach with lettuce Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl and toss with your favorite vinaigrette dressing or make one from scratch using the recipe below. Dressing ingredients: 1/2 cup Olive oil 1/4 cup Red wine vinegar 1 tsp honey (can substitute honey with sugar or agave) 1 tbsp Dijon mustard Dash of salt and pepper Combine all dressing ingredients in a mason jar. Secure with a lid and shake until all i

Garden facts Size: 120 square feet (3 large beds) Best thing about the garden: It's visible from the street and school, brand new beds and a great water connection. Plants: vegetables of all types - tomatoes, carrots, peas, beans and more! Maintenance: Parent volunteer Shawn Szturma, Groundwork Somerville Green Team, and additional Brown School families throughout the summer How is the garden used: outdoor classroom for students from the Brown School and mobile market production, when produce is available Parent volunteer, Shawn Szturma, has been spending a lot of time at the Brown School garden trimming back landscaping adjacent to the garden, planting with students, trellising beans and peas, and much, much more!     Recently, he spent the afternoon with the 3rd grade classrooms at the Brown school helping them plant some vegetables in the garden.  For many of the kids, this was the first time they planted vegetables directly from seed.  They were pretty a

What is it the wind has lost that she keeps looking for under each leaf? -Jim Harison and Ted Kooser From Firefly July and Other Very Short Poems "invites children to sample poems throughout the four seasons" selected by Paul B Janeczko illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Last week students in the second and third grades at the Winter Hill Community Innovation School tried strawberry spinach salad, a fruit and vegetable combination not many had tasted before! The strawberries and spinach were sourced regionally (Pennsylvania and New Jersey, respectively). Funding for these items came from the Somerville School District Farm to School Project's USDA Farm to School Planning Grant.  Strawberry spinach salad The students were suspicious at first. Many liked strawberries but few enjoyed raw spinach salad. We are happy to report that 100% of the students tried the salad! Principal Chad Mazza loved it, stating "Oh! That's good!" The teachers gave the salad a thumbs up too.  Did you try the food? How does the food look? Would you eat the food again? We have done many taste tests in our cafeterias where more children are able to try the food. For this test we wanted more in depth sensory information such as "How doe

In December 2013, Somerville Public Schools received a $45,000 Farm to School Planning grant from the USDA. This one year grant provides funding to develop a long-term district-wide strategy that supports local sourcing and helps expand current farm to school efforts. The overarching, long-term goal is for SPS students to eat healthy meals ALL DAY LONG – before, during and after school-time.  Seedlings from the Winter Hill Seedling Farm For the Farm to School Project to be a continued success it depends on connections among three areas: cafeteria, classroom, and community . The SPS Food and Nutrition Services Department is working very hard to source local, fresh ingredients whenever possible. Classroom teachers are creating linkages between food in the cafeteria, school gardens, and the curriculum. The third piece is community, which include parents and community organizations that serve the SPS families. Ladybug enjoying a snack of aphids on an eggplant leaf  Our pa