Garden To Cafe

Garden to Cafe

The Austin Independent School District (AISD) Garden to Café program provides schools with support and resources to serve food grown in school gardens directly in cafeteria meals. Each participating school has a garden leader who ensures that the food moving from the garden to the lunchroom is safe to eat, and the district also issues seasonal calls to plant, which encourage schools to grow certain recommended crops that cafeterias can plan ahead to use on menus. AISD’s commitment to fresh produce also extends beyond school gardens: every day, at least three items on offer are locally sourced, the menus are designed with seasonality in mind, and certain days are designated Farm Fresh Fridays. Click Garden_to_cafe_growing_list to see the vegetables, fruits and herbs that can be part of the Garden to Cafe program. You can email Diane Grodek for additional information or questions.

Through this program the children learn:

• Eating Locally – Access to healthy locally grown foods teaching them about different foods that are available in the season.
• Healthy Choices – Motivate students to grow healthy food and to make long-term healthy food choices.
• Safety – Garden to Cafe program has put in place standards for water quality, contamination, sanitary  practices and harvesting procedures which the children participating in the program have to adhere and who in turn learn about food safety.
• Sense of accomplishment – Nothing can beat the joy of seeing the food you grew and harvested served to the whole school in the cafeteria.