By

Matt Simms,   Hereford Middle School

Play:

Farm to School — Know Your Foods

Topics:

Access to Healthy Foods, Community Involvement,  Student Leadership

Our school has gotten our first initiative up and running. Our club decided to have a recipe submission box for healthy after-school snacks and dinners. We choose a winner twice a month and post the recipe on our website. We also purchase the ingredients and make the recipe in our school to be shared with the recipe winner's homeroom. We love this idea because it encourages students to be involved in making meals at home. At the very least, students are becoming more conscious of what they put in their body. We are hoping to follow this up with our next goal of having a nighttime Farmer's Market.

How did students and adults work together as a team?

We had to decide how often we wanted to pull recipes. We also decided to have an archive for all of the previous winners. We needed participation by both adults and students in order to create the recipes in the kitchen.

How do you plan to make this Play last during the school year and beyond?

One idea that a student brought up was to create a cookbook with the recipes that have been submitted. I think that it would be a great way to encourage continued success.