fueling our future growers
through our Farm to School Programs
Our Kids Deserve a Healthy Future.
Part of The Food Mill’s mission is to provide access to fresh food and offer education on how to prepare it. One of our four pillars is to educate through resources on good nutrition habits, growing your own food, and how to cook nourishing food. Through our strong school partnerships, our farm to school programming is the how behind our why.
Join our Work as FoodCorps Service Member!
In partnership with FoodCorps, The Food Mill farm-to-school programs work to prevent diet-related illnesses through education exposure to nutrition and hands-on growing food education. Each partner school boasts a dedicated FoodCorps Service Member and an on-site garden, serving as a living classroom. We cultivate curiosity and awareness around gardens, farming, and wholesome food choices through thoughtful lesson plans, enticing taste testings, and cafeteria conversations.
Applications for the 2024-2025 service term are now open! As a FoodCorps service member, you’ll teach kids to grow, cook, and love the nourishing foods that celebrate their cultures and communities—and help schools serve more of those foods, too.
FoodCorps recruits talented leaders into full-time, paid public service, where they grow healthy school food environments in diverse communities through hands-on, experiential food education.
Apply through the link below!
Empowering Students through Nutrition & Growing Education: Our FoodCorps Partnership
Foodcorps partners with schools, nonprofit organizations, and communities to nourish kids’ health, education, and sense of belonging. Foodcorps is an AmeriCorps group that works alongside educators and school nutrition leaders to provide kids with nourishing meals, food education, and culturally affirming experiences with food that celebrates and nurtures the whole child.
We value our relationship with Foodcorps, as their model takes the workload off the principal, teachers and administration and utilizes supervisor organizations like us to do the heavy lifting to make farm to school programming successful and sustainable for the long term. Our organizational goals also align as Foodcorps and The Food Mill would like to see every elementary age child have access to food education and nourishing food by 2030!
On average 84% of students receive either free or reduced-price lunches in Foodcorps schools, relative to 77% nationwide. Muscogee County is over 80% and higher than the state’s average of 62%. This is a drastic increase from just 37% in 2015 according to the Piedmont Community Health Needs Assessment, indicating an increase in poverty and food instability in our city.
Farm to School Impact
It has been proven that Farm to school programming has a positive impact on students' eating habits when the Foodcorp curriculum is implemented. After just ten hours of hands-on nutrition and farming lessons students show a 54% increase in their preference of choosing fresh fruits and vegetables than they did prior to being involved in the program. In fact, kids involved in the farm to school programs are also eating 3x times more fruits and vegetables than kids who are not. According to the American Heart Association, what a child eats from birth up until age 13 directly impacts their chances of developing heart disease later in life. Even if habits change to healthier ones as an adult the risk of heart disease can increase significantly if a child has poor eating habits early in life.
In 2023 alone, our farm to school programming with Foodcorps service members have already taught growing and nutrition education to 1,368 students, presented 138 class lessons, 163 hours teaching class, 222 hours in the school garden, and 106 hours in the cafeteria this school year.
Thanks, Vego Garden!
We are so grateful to Vego Garden for donating FIVE raised garden beds to our
Farm to School Program at Dorothy Height Elementary School. Because of their generosity, our students at Dorothy Height Elementary School are able to put their farming skills to work. Our students take great pride in growing, and we’re honored to come alongside them and help cultivate a passion for growing and healthy eating.