Somerville Farm to School Project

We’ve had a busy Fall season in the gardens! This week will wrap up the final, yet very important, chore of “putting the garden to bed” ! Parent volunteers, students, and educators have been hard at work since the beginning of school, harvesting and tasting a variety of vegetables, saving tomato seeds, and planting garlic! Now it’s time to say goodnight to the gardens, as we learn about the importance of cover crops, mulching, and how some plants survive during the winter. Lower elementary school students have been engaged and directly involved in making sure our gardens stay healthy over the winter until we wake them up in the Spring! We also celebrated our annual Corn Shucking and Local Harvest Day ! With the help of community partner volunteers (Groundwork, Shape Up, UMass), parents, and students we shucked over 3,000 ears of corn before school even started! The children enjoyed the fruits of their labor with a local beef burger for lunch! Corn Shucking is always a favorite day ...

Thank you to Farm to Institution New England for recognizing the hard work of the Somerville Family Learning Collaborative (SFLC)! In collaboration with the Somerville Farm to School Project, the SFLC held Literacy Pop-Up Events  at 8 Somerville schools in June 2014 that were attended by over 500 families. The events provided parents with creative ways to teach reading skills through the lens of food, from taste tests to grocery store scavenger hunts to food diaries and more. Thank you to the SFLC for their amazing work! The following is a repost from the Farm to Institute New England: The votes are in and we are thrilled to announce the winners in the Northeast Farm to School Recipes for Success Contest ! Grand Prize ($300 prize): Iron Chef – Salad Challenge Elizabeth Lichtenberg from Alton Central School in Alton Bay, NH Runner Up ($100 prize): Raising a Reader – Food Literacy Workshop Karyn Novakowski from Somerville Far...

On January 13, 2015 Mass Farm to School Project held a regional conference in Worcester, MA. Attending the conference were food service directors, educators, policy makers, public health advocates and farm to school enthusiasts. Three inspiring keynote speakers kicked off the conference: Ruby Maddox, Assistant Director for the Miller Worley Center for the Environment at Mt. Holyoke College, Melissa Honeywood, Food Service Director Cambridge Public Schools , and Niaz Dorry, Coordinating Director of the Northwest Atlantic Marine Alliance . Each speaker, offering her unique perspective, reminded us of three basic, but indispensable truths. 1. Farm to school (and sea to school) programs rely on connections and relationships. Collaborations among teachers, food service directors, farmers, fisherman, and the larger community are vital to successful farm to school programs. No one person can create a farm to school program. We need support from three...