Recognizing the need for local and organically grown food in schools-to increase both the physical health and learning capacity of America’s youth-the farm-to-school movement is spreading across the nation, inspired in part by Waters’ Edible Schoolyard Project.
Groundwork does a substantial part of its work by being solutions- oriented and sharing positive models for community resilience. The best model we found for structuring farm to school programs was the Three C’s: Cafeteria, Classroom, and Community.
Last year I served as Groundwork’s FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member at Boyne Falls Public School. This year I returned for another year of service at Boyne Falls, but I’m also working in Pellston Public Schools. Both schools are located in rural northern Michigan, but each have their own unique situation that shapes the goals and focus of my service.
Staff are often left out of discussions about improving the quality of food served in hospitals and nursing homes. Autumnwood of McBain in Missaukee County is using a Building Healthy Communities grant to improve the health of both staff and residents.
Nathan Bates and Boyne Falls Public School are a shining testament to the impact of northwest lower Michigan’s flourishing farm to school movement. It is a movement that is benefiting schoolchildren both nutritionally and academically and, at the same time, is giving small and mid-size farmers a growing market for their crops and helping them stay on their land.
To celebrate Alice Waters’ visit to the National Writers Series, the first-annual Local Harvest Restaurant Series will feature a variety of Grand Traverse area restaurants, all of which will demonstrate their devotion to the local food community by featuring a “Harvest Week Special” menu item that is either 100 percent locally sourced or a recipe from one of Waters’ cookbooks.