23. Farm2School Vancouver

Organization Information

Organization Name

Farm to School BC (program of Public Health Association of BC)

Mission and Vision of Organization

F2SBC Vision

Healthy, local and sustainable food on the plates and minds of all students in BC F2SBC Mission: Working with communities and partners, Farm to School BC seeks to empower and support schools in building comprehensive Farm to School programs that support vibrant, sustainable, regional food systems, develop student food literacy and enhance school and community connectedness.

F2SBC Goals

1. Support the development of sustainable regional food systems in BC by bringing more healthy, local, and sustainable food into BC schools
2. Promote healthy eating in schools by supporting the further development of healthy school food environments and fruit vegetable consumption
3. Advance experiential, hands-on learning opportunities related to food systems and the development of student food literacy
4. Enhance school and community connectedness. Develop promising Farm to School practice models that are sustainable, self-financing, eco-friendly and have the potential to be implemented elsewhere. Farm to School BC is a program of the Public Health Association of BC and is supported by the Province of British Columbia and the Provincial Health Services Authority.

Guiding Principles + Values

Farm to School empowers students and school communities to make informed food choices while contributing to vibrant, sustainable regional food systems that support the health of people, place and planet. Farm to school programs differ by school, but always include one or more of the following:

1. Healthy, Local Food: Schools source local food in a variety of ways, including through direct farmer relationships, food distributors, schoolyard farms, or the harvesting of wild or traditional foods. When local food arrives in schools it is often served in the form of a salad bar, hot lunch program, tasting activity, fundraiser, or community celebration.
2. Hands-on Learning: Food literacy is a critically important component of Farm to School programs. Step into any school offering a Farm to School program and you will find students learning about food in the school garden, greenhouse, kitchen, lunchroom or classroom. They may also be getting ready for field trips to local farms, forests and shores.
3. School & Community Connectedness: The most successful and sustainable Farm to School programs are built upon strong relationships. Schools establish relationships with farmers, community members, and support organizations, tapping into local knowledge passion, skills and resources.
4. Sustainable Regional Food Systems: The Farm to School BC Network and movement is dedicated to supporting the development of sustainable regional food systems in British Columbia. Please refer to the short paper recently published by the BC Food Systems Network on Regional Food Economies ( ​to get a sense of what a regional food system entails As of 2021, Farm to School BC has been active for 14 years (established in 2007).

Farm to School BC has funded over 271 farm to school programs across BC. Farm to School BC provides in-person support to 19 school districts. Farm to School BC is:

• a FRAMEWORK built around promoting food literacy through a collective impact approach of catalyzing and convening sectors interested in achieving the same goal.
• a NETWORK dedicated to supporting the development of sustainable regional food systems in BC.
• a provincially funded healthy eating PROGRAM grown in the community by the Public Health Association of BC for over a decade.

Contact Information

• Primary Contact Person(s): Addie de Candole
• Email: [[1]]
• Phone: 250-571-0202
• Address: #550-2950 Douglas St., Victoria, BC V8T 4N4
• Website: https://farmtoschoolbc.ca/

Preferred Method of Contact

• Best method(s) to contact: Email
• Best day(s) to contact: Tuesdays, I am in a part-time role, set days of the week will be confirmed in the next couple weeks
• Best time(s) to contact: Mornings

Preferred Platform(s) for Remote Collaboration

• Email, Phone, Zoom

Project Description

Context: What challenge or issue does the project aim to address?

Farm to School BC is a provincial program that brings healthy, local and sustainable food into schools across British Columbia and provides students with hands-on learning opportunities that develop food literacy, all while strengthening the local food system and enhancing school and community connectedness. Farm to School BC has extensive experience support food literacy programs in K-12 schools; it was started in 2007 and has supported over 270 school programs. While Farm to School Programs vary across schools, the most common project is a school garden and associated activities. An evaluation that involved self-reflections from students involved in farm to school programs found that many K-5 students were trying new fruit and vegetable and gardening at home, while grades 6-12 students reflected that they were eating healthier and cooking with fresher food. Approximately half of the students agreed that farm to school programs help them eat more fruits and vegetables.

Many organizations exist across the province to support school gardens and provide educational programs. But one of the challenges that F2SBC has noticed across the board is creating a stable school-based team to support the longevity of the garden project. Many garden projects get started by a champion teacher and fizzle out once they leave. Or the project thrives when a community organization conducts educational programming but becomes overgrown if funding for that community organization dwindles. While there are many online resources and in-person workshops, there are fewer formal mentorship opportunities to support school-based teams to design their project for long-term success.

To meet this need, Farm to School BC has pivoted our webinar series to create a 6 part interactive mentorship webinar series to support school-based teams to create sustainable and successful school gardening programs. The six-part webinar series will provide space for educators to learn about the best practices of starting a school garden, creating a garden committee, and garden maintenance. Using a Train the Trainer model, the webinars will be a space for garden committee leads to use the worksheet prompts to use in their own garden committees.

The six topics are tentatively:

1. Setting up your School Garden Committee
2. Designing your School Garden and Crop Planning
3. Indoor Planting (Growing Seedlings)
4. Building and Preparing the Garden
5. Outdoor Planting (Planting in the Garden)
6. Summer Maintenance and Long-Term Sustainability

This series will also serve as a trial run for future webinar series that support other types of program models (such as land-based learning, cooking, and other food literacy activities). LFS350 students will support the webinar series by compiling resources, developing a worksheet template, creation of at least two of the worksheets, and creating an infographic to help promote the series and/or showcase how to set up a sustainable garden project. Future student projects will hopefully build off of this work and support the implementation and evaluation of the webinar series from January 2022-May 2022.

Main Project Activities and Deliverable(s)

• Literature review + creating a resource for school gardens (a lot of this work has already been done, but will help familiarize students; resources will be categorized based on the topic of each webinar and help inform the worksheet content)
• Develop worksheet template for each webinar, potentially create a couple of the worksheets
• Media creation: infographic/poster to summarize the mentorship webinar series and help promote the series

Will the project work for the students be online, in person, or a combination?

• Online

Student Assets and Skills (preferred or required)

• Attention to detail, strong communication skills, some experience or interest in gardening or working with youth would be helpful

Are there any mandatory attendance dates (e.g. special event)?

• N/A - optional to attend F2S Webinar on Oct 19th from 3:15-4:45 pm to learn more about F2SBC

Is a criminal record search (CRS) required?

• No

Preferred Days of Week and Hours

• Flexible

Related Community Service Opportunities for Students

• TBD

Required Reading

Project/Partner Orientation Materials

Students should review these materials prior to the first partner meeting:

• https://farmtoschoolbc.ca/
• Review teacher resources pages including Food Literacy Resource List, Fall and Spring learning activities (especially as they relate to school gardens): https://www.sgsonetwork.org/

Additional Project/Partner Orientation Materials

The following will be provided at the first community partner meeting:

• Additional supplementary materials about the workshop series will be provided at the first meeting.