Farm to School

West Virginia Department of EducationOffice of Child Nutrition

What is Farm to School?

• Bringing Local Food to Schools• It can be picked at the peak of ripeness and so

improves school food quality. • Local food connects students to the season,

their locale, and their community.• Local food is a platform for education, nutrition,

health, agriculture and gardening education, and economics.

• Good for local farmers and the community.

Clay County

What is the Office of Child Nutrition Doing?

• Working with Food Service Directors to help them access locally grown food and tracking their purchases.

• Getting Ag Ed involved with Food Service Directors and cafeterias through the CTG: Farm to School Grant.

• Team Nutrition Grants to help schools start growing that might not have an Ag Ed program.

• Providing assistance to Food Service Directors with AmeriCorps members working on nutrition education, local food education, and school gardens.

• Working with Extension to reach local farmers with information on how to work with schools.

• Providing cooks with training to promote cooking from scratch.• Working with various non-profits on food education projects.

Greenbrier County

West Virginia Department of Education, Office of Child NutritionFarm to School in West Virginia 2012 – 2013

Hampshire County

F2S Community Development Group Model

• The Office of Child Nutrition (OCN) works with a group of partners self titled the WV Farm to School Community Development Group which is a model for the type of support group that could form in each county to work on Farm to School together.

• Composed of partners from the Office of Child Nutrition, Office of Career, Technical and Agriculture Education, the WVU Small Farm Center, WV Dept. of Agriculture, Collaborative for the 21st Century Appalachia, and the New Appalachian Farm and Research Center.

• On the county level it could the Food Service Director, Agriculture Education Instructor, Extension Agent, a local farmer, and possibly other community members from key organizations.

Mineral County

Resources to get Started with Farm to School:

• Contact us with your ideas for your locale.• OCN Farm to School website, coming soon.• From Scratch Training for school cooks.• OCN’s CTG: Farm to School Grant• http://

teamnutrition.usda.gov/Resources/dig_in.html

• www.vtfeed.org