The Farm to School program that LHNC and many other stakeholders have built over the past few years to serve our schools and students is adding an exciting new component to bring it all together, year round!
Harvest of the Month is a Statewide Program that schools all over California can partake in. LHNC and our county schools have grant funding to offer this to 11 local schools!
Every school that wishes to participate receives a sample for each student of seasonal fruits or vegetables to help educate them about growing and eating fresh food. Western Nevada County launches our Harvest of the Month program this month and the featured fruit is the Mandarin Orange! In addition to the fruit or vegetable itself, each classroom will be given a short lesson on the produce and curriculum that can be connected to math, science, history and practical applications with a recipe!
We have 11 schools, 150 classes and 3500 students set to participate this year in the program! Think of the thousands of pounds of fresh, local produce that our students will have access too!
All of the vegetables will be sourced from Mountain Bounty Farm on the North San Juan Ridge, the fruit will come from various local growers.
In addition to the education that will be happening in the classroom with Harvest of the Month, Central Kitchen is doubling the effort to highlight the monthly harvest by featuring the item in the school lunch menu! Wow!! By offering tastes and education throughout the month, our students will really become familiar with these foods.
And finally, our beloved community market, Briar Patch Co-op is offering a special on the Harvest of the Month food so that parents can then purchase the featured food to cook at home!
Each month, we will post about the featured item and share a recipe from the Harvest of the Month curriculum!