FoodPrints

New School Farm Stands at FoodPrints Sites

Jun. 2, 2023

In a new frontier of collaboration between our programs, FRESHFARM is now running our first school farm stands at FoodPrints sites: Whittier Elementary in Ward 4 and Simon Elementary in Ward 8. Each week, about 50 pounds of wholesale produce—from Barajas Produce, Mickley’s Orchard, Pleitez Produce Farm, and other farmers—is delivered to these schools by our Pop-Up Food Hub team. Our farm stand and FoodPrints teams collaborate to set up and sell the produce.

Students Bring Their Energy and Assistance to the School Farm Stand

At Whittier Elementary, students help run the farm stand! 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders collect the fruits and veggies that families and neighbors want to buy, and then FRESHFARM staff facilitate the sales. More than 30 customers each week select from a variety of spring produce—from asparagus, beets, Bok choy, kale, lettuce, and Swiss Chard to spring onions, radishes, sugar snap peas, and strawberries. Fresh, affordable eggs are also for sale, which customers appreciate during this time when eggs are sometimes hard to come by and expensive in grocery stores.

Customers Can Use Food Benefits

The school farm stands are open to both families and members of the community. In the first month of operations, customer counts and sales have steadily increased. As with the other FRESHFARM farm stands, SNAP benefits are accepted and FreshMatch is offered, doubling customers’ purchasing power when they use federal benefits.

Farm Stands Extend In-School Food Education

FRESHFARM recently started running these school farm stands as a pilot method of increasing food access at FoodPrints partner schools, and after seeing the success of the model when it was started by the Whittier Parent-Teacher Organization and a couple of staff members at the school last year. The school community worked to grow our partnership with the farm stand, building off of how Principal Tiffany Johnson saw FoodPrints as pivotal in moving toward a more just food system for her school community. In line with this goal, school administrators, staff, and parents voiced a desire for better access to nutritious food in their school communities. Due to this excitement and demand, a small-scale farm stand was born.

Now families have access to the same delicious fruits and vegetables that their students are cooking and eating in the FoodPrints classroom, combining food education inside the classroom with food access outside of it.