Georgia is having a Pepper Palooza!

By Yaza Sarieh 

Yaza Sarieh is the Georgia Organics Community Collaboration Coordinator. 

Graphics created by Ana Maria Paramo

For the past ten years, Georgia Organics has coordinated a statewide campaign to get kids eating, growing, and learning about a new fruit or vegetable during October Farm to School Month.  Over the years, this campaign has encouraged millions of Georgians to get excited about local fruits and veggies – even the ones that have a bad rep!  

Our 2022 October Farm to School Month campaign, Spinach To Win It, reached over 700,000 Georgia students. Check out all our previous fruit and vegetable-themed campaign materials here. 

This year’s October Farm to School Month campaign is celebrating PEPPER PALOOZA! 

Graphics created by Ana Maria Paramo

Peppers are awesome because they not only grow and thrive right here in Georgia, but they are also found in cuisines all over the world.  

When you sign up for October Farm to School Month: Pepper Palooza at bit.ly/pepperpalooza, you’ll automatically receive access to our free electronic toolkit full of pepper-themed materials. From lesson plans to classroom & cafeteria recipes, plus school garden resources and everybody’s favorite: merch – this campaign is going to be pepper than ever. It’s downright spicy! 

To get peppered for Pepper Palooza, we asked some Georgia Organics staff to share some of their favorite pepper meals: 

“I love to eat peppers in all kinds of salsas and hot sauces, which I eat on everything. I also love all peppers on pizza.”

— Kimberly Koogler, Community Collaborations Manager

“I love to eat Muhammara, which is a red pepper dip from the Middle East. It is great with pita bread or vegetables! When you sign up for Pepper Palooza, you can get a free kid-friendly Muhammara recipe!”

— Yaza Sarieh, Community Collaborations Coordinator

“I love this recipe from the New York Times: Skillet Chicken with Black Beans, Rice and Chiles.”

— Lydia Hsu, Farmers Services Coordinator

“My favorite way to eat pepper is in a non-traditional Italian sausage and peppers recipe. I like to char my onions with red and yellow bell peppers, then add fresh garlic and fresh oregano with chicken sausage. It’s a very simple and yummy recipe.”

— Kimberly Della Donna, Community Collaborations Director

“I’ve been snackin’ on jalapeños frescos since I was 4 years old – my favorite way to enjoy a spicy, healthy snack! When I decided I wanted to step away from a career in professional theatre, I never dreamed that farming and agriculture would be my next big step. For my first growing season this spring, I decided to stick to my love of peppers & grow six different varieties to see what new peppery dishes I could explore…on my list to try are: Sofrita, a traditionally Puerto Rican soup featuring aji dulce peppers (ajicitos) & Peperonata (Sweet Bell Peppers With Olive Oil, Onion, and Tomatoes) – using doe hill golden bell peppers – and my own hot sauce using habanero, jalapeno & aji amarillo chili peppers, all home grown from USDA Organic seed sourced from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.”

— M.F. Espinoza, Communications Fellow 

Speaking of eating peppers, we have some BRAND NEW resources and activities specifically tailored for school nutrition!  As part of our toolkit, we have different cafeteria recipes and promotional materials that will get everyone pumped for peppers. Additionally, when districts serve peppers at least once a week during the month of October, they are eligible to win a very special prize! Check out the requirements and contest information here.  

Courtesy of Emily House, Gainesville, GA 

Courtesy of Samantha Tarvin, Walker County 

And speaking of contests, don’t forget to share all of your fun pepper activities for our social media contest! Use #pepperpalooza in your social media posts for the chance to win a fantastic prize. Social media winners will be selected each week and highlighted in our weekly engagement e-mails throughout October. At the end of the month, one lucky winner will receive a grand prize – so don’t snooze on the palooza! 

What are you waiting for? If you haven’t signed up already, REGISTER NOW to get this Pepper Palooza started!  

To learn more about Georgia Organics visit georgiaorganics.org or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube by searching (Georgia Organics).  

Farm To School Month: Spinach To Win It! Highlights

By Olivia Mountcastle

Olivia served as our 2022 Farm to School Intern as well as the CDC Public Health Associate Program Fellow.

Thank you to all who participated in 2022 October Farm to School Month with our Spinach to Win It! resources, making it an enormous success! The creativity this year was unbe-Leafable! We are so excited to share that we reached…. Drumroll….. 

                          693,000 Students across Georgia with our #SpinachToWinit! Campaign 

Georgia’s Governor Kemp recognized the positive impact of statewide Farm to School work by declaring October as Farm to School and  ECE Month with an official Proclamation! This honor couldn't have happened without all of the amazing farm-to-school work YOU do.  

Georgia Governor Declares the month of October Farm to School/ECE Month state-wide.

We loved following our participants’ activities through the social media tag #Spinachtowinit. The spinach content shared by the students, teachers, faculty, and parents is entertaining and inspiring. You can find it all by searching #Spinachtowinit on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. Choosing weekly winners was incredibly difficult—which is why we chose to pick more than one weekly winner.

Some of the innovative projects we saw included:

• Painting with spinach  

• 3-D printing Popeye 

• Spinach songs and raps 

• And so much more!

We’ve highlighted some of the amazing projects shared by compiling social media posts in a video. Check out all of the spinach fun from the month here.

Our October Farm to School Month, Spinach to Win it! content will remain available throughout the school year, and we encourage everyone to keep the fun going. Spinach season has just begun, so you can continue planting and harvesting spinach into the colder months. Thank you to everyone who participated in activities this month making this a wonderful Spinach-tastic success!

To learn more about our ongoing Farm to School programming, go to farmtoschool.georgiaorganics.org.

Thank you to everyone who participated in activities this month making this a wonderful, Spinach-tastic success!

Our October Farm to School Month, Spinach to Win it! content will remain available through the school year at farmtoschool.georgiaorganics.org/spinachtowinit. Past content from our annual October Farm to School Month campaigns is at gfft.georgiaorganics.org!

Visit georgiaorganics.org to see all of what we do and follow us on social media @georgiaorganics for updates and weekly happenings.

October Farm to School Month: Honoring History & Culture through Farm to School Curriculum, Recap

By Kimberly Koogler 

Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics.  

For the grand finale of our October Farm to School Month Wednesday webinar series, we gathered at the Parkside Elementary School garden with Jenna Mobley of Tending Our Common Ground, Tasha Gomes of FoodCorps Georgia, and Suzanne Welander, a founding member of Parkside Elementary School’s garden.

To honor and get grounded in the garden space we were in, Suzanne Welander told us all about the history and evolution of Parkside’s school garden, including all of the many and various contributions made by so many different community members over the past 15 years.

Tasha Gomes Parkside Elementary Garden

We spent a lovely hour together, learning about culturally responsive teaching practices, talking about our favorite meals, exploring how that simple prompt can be turned into a culturally relevant and rich garden project for your whole class that promotes each student’s individual identity and celebrates the diversity in your classroom. 

If you were not able to join us for this, I really encourage you to watch the recording. It will not only inspire you, it will also leave you feeling good. Here are some golden nuggets to take away:  

• Culturally responsive teaching…  

• Honors those who came before us and those who are with us presently. 

• Acknowledges and promotes each of our individual student’s identities and celebrates diversity DAILY. 

• Engages in student-centered instruction, centered on students’ unique interests, abilities, and life experiences. 

• Connects to, affirms, uplifts, and validates your students’ family and community traditions and knowledge. 

• Are you a school garden leader having trouble getting teachers or other school community members engaged and invested in your school garden? Ask them how they want to use it and what they need to do so! How would the school garden best serve them and meet their needs?  

• A favorite children’s book to open the conversation about food and culture is The Ugly Vegetables by Grace Lin. 

• Have students catalog what they eat all week in a food journal and/or have them choose a favorite meal. Then you can plan your garden together, choosing plants that make up part of the students’ favorite meals. 

• There are many opportunities to invite parents into this process, too. 

• You could compile recipes brought from home into a class cookbook. 

• Encourage and model for students how to respectfully express curiosity about their peers and their lived experiences.  

Tasha Gomes mealtime traditions (photo by Jenna Mobley)

To learn more about FoodCorps Georgia, visit foodcorps.org, and follow them on social media @foodcorps_ga.

To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit georgiaorganics.org and follow us on social media @GeorgiaOrganics and at facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.  

October Farm to School Month: Livin’ la Vida Okra con Mis Pequeños Genios, Recap & Video

En Español y English (scroll down)

Livin’ la Vida Okra con Mis Pequeños Genios—Resumen

Por Kimberly Koogler

Kimberly Koogler es la Coordinadora de Farm to School en Georgia Organics.

El miércoles pasado, el equipo Farm to School se reunió con María Claudia Ortega en su guardería familiar en Marietta, GA, My Little Geniuses para conversar con ella y ver como ella hace Farm to ECE todos los días con sus estudiantes chiquitos.

My Little Geniuses excited about okra!

Maria Claudia teaching knife skills

Empezamos entrevistando a María Claudia para conocerla un poco más, de donde es y de su familia y su trabajo. María Claudia y su esposo, Jesus Silva vinieron desde Colombia, su país de origen, hace aproximadamente 20 años. Vienen de familia agricultora y María Claudia había estudiado la educación especial en Colombia. Llegaron acá y a pesar de que fue bastante difícil empezar de nuevo en un país nuevo, donde el idioma principal es inglés, lograron a abrir su guardería My Little Geniuses dentro de su propio hogar. Con el correr de los años se ha hecho una guardería de gran reputación con un excelente programa de Farm to ECE.

Luego María Claudia describió para la audiencia dos ejemplos específicos de actividades Farm to ECE que ella ha hecho con sus propios estudiantes:

1. El primer de cómo cortar y preparar el okra con los estudiantes para hacer una prueba de sabor de okra frito al “air fryer”

2. Y el segundo de una exploración de hojas diversas y otra prueba de sabor de diferentes hojas de tres maneras distintas.

(photos: onion bed screen shot, garden tour screenshot) Por último, nos dio un recorrido por su huerta donde se cultivan muchos vegetales diversos para utilizar ahí en la guardería diariamente.

En caso de que no pudiera asistir, aqui hay algunos puntos clave:

• Los beneficios de cultivar y cosechar en un entorno ECE son muchos, incluyendo:

• La comida que uno cultiva y cosecha por si mismo está mas fresca, segura, sabrosa, y sana.

• Ya no hay que comprar tanta verdura del super.

• Es un programa rico y bonito que ofrece oportunidades sin fin de aprendizaje diferentes para los niños.

• Empiece con algo pequeño, poco a poco, sea constante y diligente, y su programa de educación jardinería crecerá con el tiempo.

• Toda cosa (literalmente)y cada falla en el jardín es una oportunidad de aprendizaje para los niños.

• El okra hecho al “air fryer” sale muy rico. 😉

Se puede hacer aderezo “Ranch” de yogurt griego, especies, e hierbas, y a los niños les gusta toda verdura mejor la que tenga “Ranch”.

Un programa de jardinería en un centro ECE queda mejor si se involucran a los padres. Por ejemplo: Maria Claudia nos dijo que la mayoría de las familias de My Little Geniuses son Mexicanas que comen picante, y por eso, cultiva varias clases de chile/pimiento para compartir con ellas.

Echa un vistazo a la grabación para obtener más información sobre My Little Geniuses y su programa modelo de Farm to ECE.

Para obtener más información e inscribirse en Livin ’la Vida Okra, visite bit.ly/livinlavidaokra.

Para obtener más información sobre Georgia Organics, visite georgiaorganics.org y síganos en las redes sociales @GeorgiaOrganics y en facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.

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Livin’ la Vida Okra con Mis Pequeños Genios—Recap

By Kimberly Koogler

Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics.

Last Wednesday, the Farm to School team met with Maria Claudia Ortega at her family daycare center, My Little Geniuses, in Marietta, GA to talk with her and see how she does Farm to ECE every day with her young students.

We began by interviewing Maria Claudia to get to know her a little more and learn where she’s from and about her family and work. Maria Claudia and her husband, Jesus Silva, came from Colombia, their home country, about 20 years ago. They come from a farming family and Maria Claudia had studied special education in Colombia. They arrived here and despite it being very difficult to start anew in a new country, where the primary language spoken is English, they managed to open their family daycare center My Little Geniuses out of their own home. Over time, they have gained a great reputation and have created an excellent Farm to ECE program.

My Little Geniuses making air fried okra.

Then Maria Claudia described for the audience two specific examples of Farm to ECE activities that she has done with her own students:

1. The first one about how to cut and prepare okra with students for a taste test of air-fried okra.

2. And the second about an exploration of different leaves and a three-part taste test of different edible leaves.

Lastly, she gave us a tour of their garden, where they grow a bunch of different vegetables to use daily in their ECE center.

In case you missed it, here are some key takeaways:

My Little Geniuses tasting okra!

There are so many benefits of growing food in an ECE setting, including:

• The food you grow yourself is more fresh, safe, tasty, and healthy.

• You don’t have to buy as much produce from the store.

• It’s a rich and beautiful program that offers endless different learning opportunities for the kids.

• Start small, be consistent, and your gardening education program will grow over time.

• Literally everything and every failure in the garden is a learning opportunity for the kids.

• Turns out air-fried okra is delicious.

You can make your own ranch dressing using Greek yogurt, herbs, and spices, and kids like vegetables better with Ranch.

Garden tour with Maria Claudia.

A gardening program in an ECE Center is even better with engaged parents. For example, Maria Claudia told us that the majority of My Little Geniuses’ families are Mexican and like spicy food, so she grows several different varieties of hot peppers to share with them.

Check out the recording to learn more about My Little Geniuses and their model Farm to ECE program.

To find out more about and sign up for Livin’ la Vida Okra, visit bit.ly/livinlavidaokra.

To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit georgiaorganics.org and follow us on social media @GeorgiaOrganics and facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.

October Farm to School Month: The Secret Succotash Society, Recap

By Kimberly Koogler

Kimberly Koogler is the Farm to School Coordinator at Georgia Organics. 

Next in our webinar series line-up on October 20 is Livin' la Vida Okra con Mis Pequeños Genios presented in Spanish by Maria Claudia Ortega of My Little Geniuses and Lena Enciso of Georgia Organics and translated to English by Kimberly Koogler of Georgia Organics.

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Today is your special day because we’re freely offering to you the steaming secrets of an American treasure, a most satisfying succotash. Welcome to this high society!

In case you missed it, The Secret Succotash Society gathered last week, and the not-so-secret secrets of “suffering succotash” were revealed. Cobb County UGA Extension Agent, Master Gardener, and Food Historian, Terri Carter (pictured below) beautifully laid out some of the intriguing and important histories behind both okra and the old, multicultural dish called “succotash.”

Chef, Author, and Health Educator, Asata Reid gave to us a live demonstration of how to cook succotash, made our mouths water, and shared with us some culinary secrets as well as some suggestions for incorporating cooking into curriculum and/or curriculum into cooking.

Here are some key takeaways, but seriously, check out the recording of this presentation (scroll down!) to make sure you get all the juicy bits:

• Africans, kidnapped and forced into slavery brought okra to the Americas.

• Explore the different names around the world for okra and how okra is used in different cultures.

• Succotash, introduced to struggling colonial immigrants by the Narragansett people, was born out of the genius Native American technology and system of planting known as the “three sisters”. The basic elements are corn, squash, and beans. This brilliant combination of legumes and whole grains provides the amino acids your body needs to create complete proteins.

Culinary secrets:

• To avoid okra slime, cook fresh, whole okra quickly, just until bright green and still firm.

• Or cook okra longer in stews so that it becomes part of the sauce and thickens the stew.

• Make sure you use a heavy pan (it’s better for caramelization and it’s safer in the classroom).

• Don't overcook your corn!

• Use lots of smoky paprika for flavor if you’re not going to use bacon or sausage.

• A whole lot of black pepper is the secret to Southern cooking.

• Serve your succotash over rice for a super sensational and satisfying, not-at-all-suffering, nutrient dense meal.

• This simple dish is bursting with opportunity to learn and teach: history, culture, social studies, math and science, measurements, chemical reactions, emulsification, knife skills, exploration of shapes, size, contrasting colors…

Here is the recipe and scroll down or click here to check out the recording!

Next in our webinar series line-up on October 20 is Livin' la Vida Okra con Mis Pequeños Genios presented in Spanish by Maria Claudia Ortega of My Little Geniuses and Lena Enciso of Georgia Organics and translated to English by Kimberly Koogler of Georgia Organics.

To see all of our upcoming Good Food for Thought events, visit georgiaorganics.org/virtual-events.

To learn more about and sign up for Livin’ la Vida Okra visit bit.ly/livinlavidaokra.

To learn more about Georgia Organics, visit georgiaorganics.org, and follow us on social media @GeorgiaOrganics and at facebook.com/GeorgiaOrganics.