Jahiaire Byrd digs into salad greens grown in the garden at Myers Middle School.
Fresh greens went quickly on Friday.
We hit an important milestone on Friday: The school lunch program served our produce in the cafeteria. We harvested quite a load of leafy greens and radishes on Thursday afternoon. The food services folks made a salad with it. And the students at Myers Middle School scarfed it up!
We will definitely do this again. In partnership with the school lunch program, we will touch so many more students than we do with our weekly Garden Club or occasional classroom activity. We can create the kind of moment where kids are happy to give vegetables a try. Maybe we’ll win a few over. We’ll certainly give students who get their hands dirty in our garden a chance to feel good about their accomplishment – helping to create something really positive at their school. And that just might help reinforce what they learn in the garden about taking care of soil and nurturing plants.
Thanks so much to Lisa Finkenbinder, the school lunch director for the district, for welcoming our offering immediately and enthusiastically, and to Whitsons Culinary Group, the district’s food services vendor, for seconding that response.
—Bill Stoneman
