In celebration of National Farm to School Month, we've spent time in 11 school cafeterias across 4 districts (Staunton, Waynesboro, Augusta County, and Harrisonburg) conducting Farm-to-School Tastings. At each tasting, we bring a large quantity of one vegetable grown at Project GROWS, prepare the veggies into samples, and then stay through every lunch rotation to give every student in the school an opportunity to try it!
Many students are surprised by how much they like the veggies, and more often than not, whole tables of students are pleading for seconds! This season we're highlighting lunchbox peppers, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, salad greens, and winter squash, and we plan to reach 3,788 total students through this year's tastings.
Big thanks to Phase II fellows from Allegheny Mountain Institute for their help at tastings this fall!
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Have you heard about the Get Fresh Initiative?
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Project GROWS is excited to partner with Get Fresh, an initiative which aims to create long-term systemic change for children in Waynesboro by working to prevent Type 2 diabetes. Through Get Fresh, Project GROWS is interacting with Waynesboro Public Schools in a variety of ways starting this year: hosting field trips from elementary schools, selling produce to cafeterias, and conducting Farm-to-School tastings.
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Get Fresh is a partnership between Augusta Health, Waynesboro Public Schools, Project GROWS, the Virginia Cooperative Extension, Murphy Deming School of Health Sciences at MBU, and the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank. Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth.
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What's new at Project GROWS:
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As our CSA comes to a close, we know that fall is in the air! Last week we tucked in our cold-fearing plants (peppers, leeks, fennel, ovation greens) to protect them from frost and are in the process of digging our last sweet potatoes. With second graders from Stuart Hall, we transplanted a fall succession of brassicas: chinese cabbage and pak choi!
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The 2018 Project GROWS Fundraising Gala was a huge success, raising over $36,000! We are so grateful for the support of our amazing community! Click here to see the video we showed at the gala and learn a little more about our mission for food production, food access, and food education in our community.
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Meet Patty Schengber, our fall farm intern and the newest member of the Project GROWS team! Patty is a senior at JMU majoring in Spanish and minoring in Medical Humanities. She is excited to learn more about farming, growing food, and what food access looks like in our community. We're pumped to to have her energy and enthusiasm on our team this semester!
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