Growing sustainable Farm to School programs in VCH

Does enhancing school and community connectedness, improving student nutrition, providing students with hands-on learning opportunities that foster food literacy, increasing the amount of healthy, local foods in schools and strengthening local food systems sound exciting? Well, that is exactly what the Vancouver Coastal Health (VCH) Farm to School (F2S) Steering Committee from Richmond, Vancouver and the North Shore are working to make happen.

The VCH F2S Steering Committee received funding from Farm to School BC as one of three Farm to School Regional Hubs being developed to help foster collaboration and collective impact at the regional level. The Regional Hub funding is allocated to a part-time F2S Community Animator and eight Start-up Grants targeting vulnerable schools. Nil Alt, who is engaged in Vancouver food initiatives, was recently been hired as the VCH F2S Regional Hub Community Animator, and will be supporting existing and new F2S programs.

The VCH F2S Steering Committee was also awarded a $55,000 McConnell Family Foundation grant and a $30,000 Vancity enviroFund grant for the Vancouver Board of Education (VBE) Learning Lab project. This is the first Canadian Learning Lab project that will serve as a model to support large scale, healthy, sustainable, local food purchasing for other school districts and institutions.

A recent Learning Lab activity involved the creation of a test kitchen to bring together cooking and purchasing staff of the VBE and their major supplier, Sysco. The day was spent at Sysco preparing 12 recipes created with delicious, local, and seasonal ingredients. All invited guests have an active stake in the school food purchasing system, whether as a grower, buyer, preparer or vendor of food.