For years, the farm has hosted school groups for field trips. After taking a break during COVID, we renewed our commitment to farm education in 2023 and have hosted a handful of schools and educational groups every year since. Whether the visit is for a few days or just for a few hours, we ingrain the young students into the farm’s rhythm and aim to make their first experience with agriculture a memorable one. At the end of the trip, you see their eyes light up when they talk about eating the juiciest strawberry they have ever had, packing 200 CSA boxes with their classmates, harvesting garlic for the farmers market and feeding compost to hungry piglets.
This year, we have been lucky to be front and center in the growing “Farm-to-School” movement—an effort to get local, fresh, and seasonal ingredients into school cafeterias. Just last week, we worked with two inspiring organizations that are transforming school lunch culture and building stronger bridges between farms and schools.
Conscious Kitchen is one of those organizations. They’re helping school districts transition their dining programs to scratch-cooked meals made from locally sourced ingredients—all within USDA budgets and far beyond basic nutritional guidelines. On Wednesday, Conscious Kitchen partnered with the Alice Waters Foundation to host their Organic Farm-to-School Workshop, teaching local food service directors how to prepare healthy, delicious meals that students will actually want to eat.
Lunch that day was a feast: focaccia pizza bread, chopped salad with apples and “healthy” ranch, butternut squash mac and cheese, and the yummiest collard greens. Sitting with school faculty, it was clear that bringing local food into schools isn’t easy. It takes persistence, education, and supportive leadership—but the impact is worth it. The faculty shared how students consistently prefer fresh, local food over processed options, and how many schools are slowly making the switch to organic ingredients. As Conscious Kitchen founder Judi Shils put it, “It just takes changing one item on the menu to make a lasting change.”
The very next morning, our team saw that impact firsthand when we hosted 34 fourth graders from the Winters School District—about 45 minutes from the farm. For years, we’ve partnered with Winters Farm to School to get our produce into their cafeterias; from little gem salads and roasted potato wedges in spring to a rainbow of melons in late summer.
Throughout the day, the students tasted vegetables like radishes, fennel, and turnips straight from the field, scavenged for walnuts in the orchard, and collected freshly laid eggs. For lunch, Chef Isac cooked up a farm-fresh meal.
Inspired by our time with Conscious Kitchen, Thursday’s lunch featured butternut squash mac and cheese, roasted potatoes, delicata squash, and a side salad. The kids couldn’t get enough of the mac and cheese—and when they learned the “secret ingredient” was butternut squash, their surprised faces quickly turned to requests to have it served at school. You can make it yourself! We’ve got the recipe on our website.
Education has always been a cornerstone of our mission at Full Belly. We believe that knowing what you eat—how it’s grown and who grows it—is essential to the local food movement. These experiences may start as small ripples, but they can shape a child’s relationship with food for the rest of their life. We are grateful for organizations like Conscious Kitchens, The Alice Waters Foundation and Winters Farm to School for doing critical work to get real, healthy food on the plates of young eaters — even if it means slipping butternut squash into mac & cheese!
Alexa McCarthy, Events and Programs Manager
Photo credits: Ella Galaty, Alexa McCarthy
