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By Beebo Turman, Project Director for the Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative
November, 2007
The Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative has existed for ten years, mainly to support school, youth-training, and community gardens. By helping the school gardens, we got involved in the vision that many of us shared, which was to change the way the students were eating, the way they thought about food, and to expand their choices for their diet. We formed the Child Nutrition Advisory Committee with the Superintendent of the school district and went about replacing the processed food the students were given at lunchtime with organic, fresh, and locally grown food. We are finally seeing a positive change inthe student lunches, and its very exciting.
Some of us on that committee began to search for ways that the gardens could be funded through the state. In 1999 one of our member gardeners, Yolanda Huang, found that 6 out of 16 of our schools could qualify for U.S.D.A. Food Stamp funds, that specifically was aimed at putting nutrition education in our schools. That was the beginning of our funding! We were able to fund a garden teacher and a cooking teacher, because all of that learning would result in nutrition education. We often say, "If they grow it, if they cook it, they will eat it!" For the following year, and all the years up to the present, Berkeley Unified School District has received funds from the "California Nutrition Network" to fund gardens and cooking and nutrition education in 7 elementary schools (Emerson, John Muir, LeConte, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, Thousand Oaks, and Washington), and 2 middle schools (Longfellow, and Willard), and at the B-Tech high school. The interest and enthusiasm that the students express while they are gardening or while they cook is wonderful! The teachers have found that the children are so much more interested in trying new vegetables, or learning and tasting about what other cultures grow or cook.
Our persistence on the Child Nutrition Advisory Committee has resulted in hiring a very capable and very knowledgeable chef, Ann Cooper, to be the Director of the school district's Nutrition Services (along with the amazing support from the Chez Panisse Foundation). She now has her staff cooking real meals, from fresh ingredients... not frozen tater tots or chicken nuggets that are just heated and served. She has brought in fresh, local organic milk, and made sure that all of their produce ingredients are G.E. free. She has given the students fresh fruit every day, and started salad bars at every school. We are delighted to see the school district support her goals (our goals!) and see the benefits for every child.
The Berkeley Community Gardening Collaborative helps gardens by bringing them city compost once a month, by giving our limited funds to gardens every year with our mini-grants, and by supporting school and community gardens in many other ways.