Ideas to consider
Here you’ll find examples of ideas that could be included as part of the school food system project you’re designing. These are not recommended as stand-alone projects for these awards. These ideas may enhance your community engagement or project quality as components of your innovative project.
Please see Inspiration for Projects for examples of innovative, community-driven project ideas that improve the local school food system.
The ideas below can be filtered by type of project and by partners. You can select more than one category in each field. The more categories you select, the more narrow your results will be.
Equipment for Growers
Support increased production capacity through irrigation systems, barns, processing equipment, cold storage, wash packs, wax boxes, shelving for the coolers, dry storage, trucks, washing stations, rock pack houses, as well as hydroponics, cold frames, hoop houses and greenhouses for year-round growing.
Example
- Hoop houses for Health in Michigan
Resource
- Hoop House Production and Marketing Guide for Farmers
Farmer Co-op
Farmers create a co-op and hire a coordinator to handle aggregation and support farmer/buyer relationships with schools.
Farmer in the School
Farmers visit classrooms to provide agricultural education for students
Focus Group with Farmers and Food Service Directors
Create opportunities for local farmers and food service directors to share success and barriers with one another and plan for school food system and marketplace improvements.
Food Service Staff Training
Provide skill-building, such as cleaning, slicing, and chopping, to help food service staff prepare fresh local foods.
Hands-on Farm Field Trips
On a farm field trip, students participate in the harvest of crops, such as potatoes, which are then brought back to the school and incorporated into a school meal.