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South Carolina Celebrates National Farm to School Month

South Carolina students harvest sweet potatoes planted as part of the Green Heart Project. Courtesy photo.

South Carolina students harvest sweet potatoes planted as part of the Green Heart Project. Courtesy photo.

Nurturing the Future

South Carolina Celebrates National Farm to School Month

By Eva Moore

 This story appears in the Oct. 17, 2019 issue of the South Carolina Market Bulletin.

During the week of October 21–25, students across South Carolina will be learning where their food comes from by participating in Make Your Plate SC Grown Week.

The activities are part of National Farm to School Month: Every October, schools across the country mark the month with gardening, taste tests, and other hands-on food education.

“A lot of schools will spend time outside — maintaining a garden, planting a garden, getting the kids immersed in what agriculture is — so students can understand where their food comes from,” explains LauraKate Anderson, who coordinates the South Carolina Farm to School Program for the state Department of Agriculture. A partnership with the S.C. Department of Education and others, South Carolina Farm to School fosters direct relationships between farms and schools, promoting local produce, healthy eating, and agriculture education.

Make Your Plate SC Grown Week is an opportunity for schoolchildren to connect specifically with South Carolina agriculture.

In the Charleston area, for example, the Green Heart Project and Charleston County School District’s Nutrition Services are serving sweet potatoes from “The Great Sweet Potato Harvest” throughout the week. During the first week of October, students, staff, and the community harvested over 200 pounds of sweet potatoes from school gardens. Students across the district will learn about sweet potatoes, with hands-on nutrition education and taste tests of South Carolina-grown sweet potatoes in all elementary school cafeterias. The Green Heart Project has helped create school gardens throughout the Lowcountry, giving children opportunities to learn about plants and agriculture while getting their hands dirty.

Other schools will have people costumed as fruits and vegetables to teach the kids about nutrition. And many schools will offer taste tests and in-the-cafeteria education.

“The cafeteria is a huge component of Make Your Plate SC Grown Week,” Anderson says. “Schools will highlight different produce each day — whatever they’re growing in their garden, they will find ways to implement in their cafeteria.”

South Carolina Farm to School resources are aimed at schools of all kinds, and the resources it offers are free.

“It’s definitely not limited to schools who have financial resources to implement the program,” Anderson says. “If you have dirt, some seeds and can build a box, you can build a Farm to School program and can work with your local cafeteria staff to request those local items.”


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