As the parent of a child who will be entering kindergarten this coming fall, I’m in a position to be newly conscious of the quality of food in schools. Here are several items of interest:
At Chews Wise, Sam Fromartz points to the blog of former reporter who spent a week in Washington, D.C. schools and wrote a six-part series about what kids eat, Tales from a D.C. School Kitchen.
At the Slow Food blog, here’s a roundup of recent school lunch news.
In the wake of the Caitlin Flanagan hullaballoo, here’s an excellent post at Civil Eats about school gardens around the country, and a list of resources for those interested in creating them (me, me, me!). Though it was hardly my first exposure to gardening, I will always remember the school garden started by my grade school science teacher. I helped out sometimes, and I remember the tall staked tomatoes seemed positively Amazonian.
Gulf coast readers, are you aware of any school garden projects in your communities?
ADDITION 3 Feb 10: Check out this blog by a teacher in Illinois who is eating school lunch like the kids every day in 2010. Here’s the Slow Food blog post.
2 Comments
I know that this is an older post, but were you able to get a garden project going at your daughter’s school? I just moved to Mobile last week with my husband and daughter and would be interested in working on a school garden. Also, I don’t think that there is a Slow Food group in Mobile. Do you know why that might be?
Hi Christine – There is a small-scale garden project at my daughter’s school, and I’m aware of several other school gardens in the area, in particular the ones at the Chickasaw Magnet School & the Alabama School of Math & Science. As far as I know, however, none of them are particularly large scale. The one at my daughter’s school is essentially four modest sized raised beds. One of the things I would like to do is set up an urban garden network, where the existing community and school gardens are documented, can serve as examples to others, and can get support. But at this point that’s just a pipe dream.
As for your second question, there used to be a Gulf Coast Slow Food chapter, but it was fairly small and I think the people who ran it didn’t see eye to eye with the national organization. They formed the organization Real Food Gulf Coast, which is basically engaged in similar endeavors, though it is primarily centered in Mississippi.
Why might that be…? That is a question I’m still struggling to answer. There is definitely interest in food system issues down here, but it is so scattered and sporadic, it’s hard to identify and really bring those people together behind one idea. I fear there is not enough of a critical mass at this point. It’s no excuse, but Mobile seems to lag about a dozen years behind on these types of health and community minded issues.
How old is your daughter and where is she going to school? Feel free to reply via my contact page if you would like to discuss anything more in depth.