FARM TO SCHOOL AT GEORGIA ORGANICS
Georgia Organics founded the state’s first farm to school program in 2007. We work with school districts, early care centers, state-wide partners, and agencies to grow farm to school at the grassroots and “grasstops” level. You can read about the impact of our farm to school programming by viewing our Annual Report.
Our farm to school work includes:
National Farm to School Network‘s Core Partner for Georgia.
Founder of the Georgia Farm to School Alliance in 2007 as a network that joins statewide agencies and organizations working in food, farming, and child nutrition to coalesce resources and support for farm to school, and to create complementary statewide programming. Our Farm to School Director currently serve as Chair of the Alliance.
Chair of the Georgia Farm to Early Care and Education Coalition. With state partners, we’ve launched the 2017-2020 Farm to Early Care and Education Strategic Plan to integrate food activities, gardening and local food into early care centers across Georgia.
Coordinate the Golden Radish Awards with UGA Cooperative Extension and the Georgia Departments of Agriculture, Education, and Public Health. The Golden Radish Award recognizes school districts for all aspects of farm to school, from local food procurement to hosting taste tests to gardening with students, and is awarded at Outstanding, Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and Honorary Levels.
Coordinate the annual October Farm to School Month campaign for Georgia. Each year, we select a vegetable to celebrate and get kids (and adults!) excited about growing, trying, and learning about a new local food. We create an electronic toolkit filled with vegetable themed curriculum linked lessons, easy activities, recipes, and more in addition to sending our first 300 participants seeds.
Offer trainings and workshops for educators, school nutrition staff, farmers, and early care and education providers to integrate farm to school in classroom and cafeteria activities. Contact abbie@georgiaorganics.org if you are interested in a training for your school or center.
Send out the state’s monthly farm to school e-newsletter, the eBite, with the latest resources, events, and grants related to farm to school in Georgia.
Founding State Partner of FoodCorps Georgia . FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders who connect kids to real food and help them grow up healthy. Georgia Organics served as the state partner for FoodCorps in Georgia from 2014-2018. Together, we deepened farm to school programs in nine school districts. A collective 29 service members with ten service sites helped over 44,000 Georgia students learn cooking and gardening skills while understanding the impact of their food choices on personal health, their environments and communities. As of June 2018, FoodCorps Georgia has transitioned from the previous state partner model to an independently operated project to which Georgia Organics acts as an advisor. For questions about FoodCorps in Georgia, please contact the FoodCorps Georgia State Program Manager, Sumer Ladd, at sumer.ladd@foodcorps.org.
Host dietetic interns for supervised practiced rotations to educate the next generation of nutrition leaders about the profound influence of organic agriculture and hands-on food and nutrition education on positive health outcomes of kids. For more information on opportunities for dietetic interns, contact abbie@georgiaorganics.org.
