By Kimberly Koogler
Kimberly Koogler is the Community Collaboration Manager at Georgia Organics.
On the western border of this great state, in a county called Muscogee, in a city called Columbus, in a neighborhood called Bibb City, is Fox Elementary School, where future farmers are learning and growing.
These young students are growing into stewards of the land as they learn to plant and care for vegetables in their school’s backyard.
The Georgia Organics Farm to School team had the great privilege and pleasure to facilitate and watch work unfold over the last seven months, thanks to fantastic Columbus partners and funding from the 2021 USDA Farm to School Implementation Grant.
May 2022 UGrow Fox Future Farmers
Fox Elementary School’s faculty, administration, and community partners used these funds to engage students and their families in nutrition and agricultural education, connecting them to a hyperlocal source of fresh, organic foods found at The Food Mill and MercyMed Farm, just a five-minute stroll from the school.
Fox Elementary School is led by Principal Yvette Scarborough and their amazing community partners include Keith Sims at MercyMed Farm, Sarah Smith of The Food Mill and UGrow Inc., and the heaven-sent Till Tomorrow Team, led by Dawn Grantham, who facilitated the whole experience.
All of this great work kicked off in November of last year when the students took their first of three field trips to MercyMed Farm and The Food Mill. On any ordinary day, these two community gems partner up to offer a Medically Tailored Meal and Fruit & Vegetable Rx (FVRx) program to qualifying patients in the community. For Fox field trips, they partnered up to teach the students about growing food and the benefits of eating fresh, locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Keith Sims teaching Fox students at MercyMed
After the first field trip, some students were already expressing that they wanted to be farmers when they grew up! By the third field trip on Earth Day of this year, they were selling vegetable seedlings that they had grown under the guidance of Farmer Keith and Food Mill Program Coordinator Sarah Smith (seen below, right) to their neighbors in the community. They raised $315 from these sales!
On that same culminating Market Day experience, they took reusable totes that they had painted just for this special occasion into the Food Mill and picked out samples of local produce to take home. On their way out the door, they tasted a smoothie that included kale they had grown in their school garden.
And that’s not all! Starting in December of 2021 and through the Spring of 2022, community guest speakers visited the school about once a month to do agricultural lessons on topics, including soil, germination, pollination, harvesting, and more. Weekly, Sarah Smith met with small groups of students from each grade level in the school garden to teach hands-on lessons and grow food together.
To encourage Fox students and their families to return to the Food Mill for locally grown produce, the school has distributed farm to school educational activity sheets to all students that they can take home, complete, and bring back to the Food Mill with their parents for a free farm to school book of their choice.
All of these efforts have made for a rich, well-rounded, real-world, practical learning experience for the students at Fox. These Fox Future Farmers are now more empowered with knowledge and skills to grow food, as well as an invaluable connection to community organizations that are providing access to fresh, locally and organically grown foods in their neighborhood.
Fox students selling seedlings, photo by Robin Trimarchi
To learn more about MercyMed Farm, visit mercymedcolumbus.com/mercymed-farm/, and follow them on social media @mercymedcolumbus. To learn more about The Food Mill, visit thefoodmill.org/ and follow them on social media @thefoodmillcolumbus. To learn more about UGrow Inc., visit ugrowinc.org/ and follow them on social media @ugrow.inc.
To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit georgiaorganics.org, and follow us on social media @GeorgiaOrganics and at facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.