PROGRAMS
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GARDENS
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School Gardens
Davis Farm to School supports school garden programs in Davis through monthly meetings for garden coordinators at all schools, lesson content, videos and a competitive grant program.
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Give and Grow
Local volunteers, farmers, and businesses donate vegetable starts to Davis Farm to School for distribution to Davis schools and families. Davis Farm to School provides instructional videos on how to plant, harvest, and prepare the vegetables. Students use a plant observation journal to record the growth of their plant.
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FRESH LOCAL FOOD
Farms-2-Families
Mini CSA Program
Davis Farm to School provides fresh, local, and sustainably grown fruits and vegetables to Davis families through its Farms-2-Families program. Seasonal fresh fruits and vegetables from Fiery Ginger Farm and recipes are distributed at Montgomery Elementary School, Patwin Elementary School, and Davis Highschool. For more information about distribution dates, please read our blog or visit our Facebook page.
Harper Harvest
Volunteers from Davis Farm to School and the Harper Jr. High Garden Program grow and deliver seasonal pumpkins and fresh fruits and vegetables to Valley Oak and the Children's Center preschool. This program, under the direction of community volunteer, Garry Pearson, provided over 200 pounds of produce to students.
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Davis Farm to School works in partnership with the DJUSD Student Nutrition Services to support their efforts to increase quantities of local fruits and vegetables in school meals and to provide nutrition education to all students. DJUSD has salad bars at every site that serves hot lunch. The salad bars include “crunch mix” salad greens, local and seasonal fruits and vegetables, and made-from-scratch whole-grain salads. School meals also include delicious made-from-scratch hot lunch entrees. Give school lunch a try! Go to the Student Nutrition Services link above to view menus.
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FIELD TRIPS​
Each year, Davis Farm to School sponsors local farm visits for 2nd graders. Students gain a deeper understanding of the link between the environment, farming and where their food comes from by meeting farmers, participating in farm activities and tasting a farm-fresh snack. The farm visits support grade-level content standards in history, language arts and science.
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Davis Farm to School and the Davis Food Co-Op partner to provide tours of the Co-Op grocery store and cooking lessons in the Co-Op teaching kitchen. This field trip is available to 3rd grade classes within DJUSD.
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Sometimes it is not feasible to take an entire class on a field trip. We've got you covered! Davis Farm to School produces original videos to local places such as Recology, school gardens and local farms such as Fiery Ginger and Vine Ray Farm. Visit our Community Resources page for links to the videos.
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WASTE REDUCTION
Recycling is Simply Elementary (RISE)
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Davis Farm to School and DJUSD co-sponsor the district-wide waste reduction and recycling program called DavisRISE (Recycling Is Simply Elementary). Each school site DavisRISE coordinator works with students, custodians, administrators and staff to implement a customized recycling and composting program. The recent ALL (All Lunch Leftovers) Compost Program, part of the commercial food scrap collection program sponsored by the City of Davis and Davis Waste Removal, has led to increased savings in solid waste removal costs. The monetary savings to DJUSD produced by the DavisRISE program provides all DavisRISE coordinators with a stipend for their work. Custodians can also earn recognition and monetary awards for their recycling work.