Our Nutrition Education team is strongly committed to providing information on local farms, agriculture, and nutrition to a broad range of community members across the state — in schools, libraries, daycares, senior centers, and senior housing. Our programs are hands-on, interactive, and work to provide participants with the information needed to make smart choices about food. Programs also seek to share cultural traditions around food and celebrate the diverse culinary heritage of Rhode Island.
Farm to School
As a Core Partner for the National Farm to School Network, Farm Fresh RI supports farm to school and farm to early care and education efforts in Rhode Island while serving as a liaison for information, resources, needs, and opportunities from the state with the National Farm to School Network. Farm to school empowers children and their families to make informed food choices while strengthening the local economy and contributing to vibrant communities.
Food, nutrition, and agriculture education are major components of our work and key to farm to school success. School gardens, cooking lessons, taste tests, and farm visits are just a few of the many farm to school practices. Helping students build a relationship with their food encourages them to make healthy choices.
Every season, we get to spend time with the Boys & Girls Club of Pawtucket after-school program, offering approximately 10 weeks of hands-on educational activities to students in third through fifth grade — from nutrition education in the colder months to gardening in spring and summer. For the fourth week of our winter series there, we focused on exploring relationships with food.
We started by going back in time and thinking about hunters and gathers… and tasted some yummy snacks inspired by them too — nuts, seeds, and yogurt! We then returned back to modern day and explored cultural flavor profiles, where students created posters for typical ingredients, like olive oil and tomatoes.
Next up, we will be focusing on recipe writing (procedural writing)! We will be making two different types of hummus with the students, as they transcribe our steps!
