Bringing Nutrious Food to the Table in Palo Alto Unified School District by Jessica Ferrell

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Jessica Ferrell, a CSA member and mom of two, has been working hard to bring  good food and nutrition education into the Palo Alto Unified School district. Her  children attend the L.M. Nixon Elementary School, which hosts a pick-up of our  CSA. We are excited to be partnering with the L.M. Nixon Elementary for some fun  projects this October during national Farm to School month. We’ve asked Jessica to  share some of the good work she’s been doing in her district with us. Thank you  Jessica for all your hard work. Hooray for our awesome CSA members!

Jessica in a PAUSD school garden

I recently completed a program called Health 4 All, through the Stanford Prevention Research Center that allowed me to pursue my interest of promoting nutrition in schools through edible gardens.   A portion of the preventive health program was spent in class gaining knowledge, and the other,  taking action within specific communities.  I was thrilled to have the opportunity to partner with the Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) to evaluate and create school gardens.

Besides the focus on school gardens, I also gathered information on current nutrition programs within this district and nationally.  Health, and specifically healthy eating has been given little priority in children’s packed school day.  Through interviews with principals, teachers, parents and community interest groups I found there was agreement that it has a valid place in their education.  Also in response to the nation’s childhood obesity epidemic, we all see the need for multiple approaches to reach our children with education about food.

I personally love shiny curriculum about eating fruits and veggies and catchy campaigns about servings a day, but that has not been shown effective for influencing the publics’ food choices.  What has is the experiential learning in the garden.  Knowing this, I wanted find out what PAUSD was doing with their current programs and see what was possible to create within my internship timeframe.

In the end, I had a varied experience of helping to create one school garden from start to finish, aiding an existing struggling program and going through the initial proposal stages with another.  At first, I was disappointed not to have the majority of my experience be with the children in the garden, seeing the effect on eating behaviors- thankfully there was that and it was very rewarding.  However, a larger issue became apparent that I wanted to address, which was how to sustain the gardens within the entire district and how best to spread the impact of the gardens throughout the community.

An “Edible Education Community” was formed with gatherings, appropriately, at the Common Ground Demonstration Garden including invested teachers, district employees, parent volunteers, and representatives from Stanford, Slow Food, and Frog Hollow Farm.   Uniting the players was a big step in moving the garden programs forward and informing PAUSD of what was already taking place.  The other was bringing the garden into more aspects of the school community- Frog Hollow Farm attends school events sharing organic healthy snacks, letting the community build a connection to the grower, and educate on sustainable farm practices.   There are farmer’s market days where the garden produce is sold and everyone gets to be involved.  Also Tasting Week, where chefs visit to cook with students, some right in the garden.

 At the end of my internship PAUSD was excited about the garden progress and willing to continue and expand what was begun.  Although there isn’t a Nutrition Education class children are required to attend, there are school gardens that are even more effective at educating the whole community about the science of healthy eating – and they’re also fun to run through.