Food and school
Snow and cold - it's a real Thunder Bay winter week. The minus 30-40 C temperatures with strong winds making it feel even colder can be draining of both personal and household energy. Lights and heat are working longer hours.
However, the Sun is on its way back to the North, so in another 2 months or so, the first teasing hints of Spring will arrive.
This week, we expand our look at food and policy to examine two programs that connect local farms and food to schools.
National farm to School Program
"Farm to School programs are popping up all over the U.S. These programs connect schools with local farms with the objectives of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, improving student nutrition, providing health and nutrition education opportunities that will last a lifetime, and supporting local small farmers."
"Rethinking School Lunch (RSL) is a comprehensive resource that explores an innovative vision: School lunch as part of an integrated curriculum using local food systems as a context for learning, while restoring the connection of farms to communities, meals to culture, and health to our children and environment.
Using a systems approach, the Center for Ecoliteracy spent five years researching the elements vital to achieving this vision:"
The Food Charter. gives us a place to begin the dialogues that are necessary if a community is to develop a farm-to-school program. The participation of a wide range of community and organizational members could make this food-to-school model work.
Bringing the farmers and educators together is an early step. This first meeting creates an opportunity for people to get to meet each other and to identify any assets and liabilities such a concept may have.
As you build support for a Food Charter you meet people with common interests and concerns. This meeting provides the opportunity to forge relationships that will benefit all a community's residents. Once people begin talking with each other about issues that concern them, an energy is created. This energy will serve to ignite other related actions.
Next week we will expand our look at education and food policy into curriculum and food. Gardening can teach us many things. Learning is not confined to a classroom. A green space on school grounds is a multi-purpose teaching aid. Seeds can be started indoors. An indoor garden is doable if the resources and determination are readily available.
Other resources:
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