I'm a Busy Bee

Wow! What a week it has been.

School started this week which has been very exciting. I've been in second grade classrooms everyday this week teaching half hour Farm-To-School lessons. The lessons are about seeds. The kids have been planting there own seed that they will observe and watch grow. Ultimately in the next couple weeks I hope to arrange a field trip to a local farm I help out at. I really want the students to see planting on a large scale. Getting kids on a farm is Farm-To-School at its essence....well more like School-To-Farm.

Today I also did my first observation of lunchtime at the elementary school. What was on the menu? Pizza, salad, canned fruit, and a granola bar with a choice of chocolate or regular milk. Not nutritious at all (with the exception of the salad). A few observations:

1. About 90% of the kids picked the sugary chocolate milk over the regular.
2. Most kids didn't even touch their salads.
3. More kids than I thought didn't finish their pizza, probably because it was old, frozen, piece of shit pizza.
4. More ranch was used on pizza than salad.

The whole thing was frustrating to watch, but it was necessary for me to do. Now I have a real idea of what kids are eating, and I'm more motivated than ever to improve school lunches. Children deserve more than the crap we give them for school lunch. And anyone that says kids won't eat healthy food is completely wrong, it just requires creative cooking and more education about food.

Also I'm not sure if I mentioned it, but I was interviewed by the local paper a couple weeks ago. My article finally was published this Tuesday (on the front page!). I really didn't think it was a huge deal, but I've been recognized everywhere I go, from the schools, to the farmer's market, to the restaurant I was at last night. I didn't realize that when you live in a small town like Livingston, news travels fast. It's kind of cool getting noticed, but what's even better is that people that recognize me are totally on board for the Farm-To-School. I'm having a lot of people willing to help in anyway they can. Community involvement is key to make this Farm-To-School program sustainable, so I'm very optimistic that Farm-To-School will be a success in Livingston!

Finally, I've started helping out at the middle school with 7th and 8th grade volleyball. Volleyball has been a part of my life since I was 13, so I really wanted to get involved out here. It's been great. The girls are super sweet and it's just fun to share my love of the game with such eager learners.

So that's been my week...pretty busy, but super exciting.

Hope everyone has a great Labor Day. If only I was super rich and could come home for this long weekend. Oh well, I'll just have to wait till December.

Love,
Becky