TOOLKIT TABLE OF CONTENTS
Farm to School Education and Trainings
About Our Boot Camps and Trainings
Illinois Farm to School Boot Camps are a half day of learning, hands-on practice and collaboration to help you expand your knowledge in key areas of farm to school practice, creating a deeper impact as you build your program. Each boot camp is geared towards teams of food service, educators and garden managers.
Our Local Procurement Day trainings focus on connecting your feeding site to the local food system and creating partnerships with farmers, aggregators, and distributors across Illinois. These training events are hosted by Illinois farmers, processors, businesses and distributors to allow food service staff an up close look at their role
ISBE Continuing Education Credits are available for food service staff at every Farm to School training. Please ask us which categories apply to the specific training you participated in.
Ways to Learn Through Example and Action
- During kitchen demos learn about easy incorporation of local and garden ingredients into standard menus and in tastings. Learn concise methods and hacks for ease in adding whole, local produce to meal offerings and lunch lines.
- Explore the possibility of incorporating a Fifth Season program to preserve the harvest and create local menus in winter.
- Learn from successful Illinois programs who have accomplished connections in the garden to food service, the classroom and at-risk kids in your school community.
- Locate local foods, discover funding sources and learn to develop community partnerships to create a sustainable program.
Creating a Farm to School Plan
Creating a plan is important in growing your farm to school program. IFSN has created a guide to help you put together a plan that works for you.
How do I develop a plan to grow Farm to School?
- Register for programming!
- Become familiar with the Farm to School tools available.
- Build a team by connecting to others at your site including garden clubs, cooking staff, science and math educators, and Wellness teams.
- Create a one-two year plan to map out program pieces and growth.
Resources for Planning
Two to Five Year Planning Document, IFSN
This planning document helps you create short and long term goals for your farm to school program.
Farm to School Planning Toolkit, USDA Office of Community Food Systems
This comprehensive toolkit helps sites build a team, establish a vision, and develop a strategy for implementing and evaluating their farm to school programming.
Evaluation for Transformation, National Farm to School Network
We recommend building a strategy to measure the impact that your farm to school activities have on food producers, health, education, and the environment. This evaluation guide will give you common language, guidelines, and metrics to build and assess your local food sourcing and gardening efforts.
Farm to School Planning Toolkit, VT FEED
Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) developed a Farm to School Rubric, Action Planning Template, Impact & Feasibility Analysis Tool, and Media Kit to help farm to school teams create sustainable and beneficial programs.
Illinois Garden Produce Act
In 2018, the State of Illinois passed the Illinois Garden Produce Act (Public Act 100-0505). This Act states:
“School-grown produce. A school district may serve students produce grown and harvested by students in school-owned facilities utilizing hydroponics or aeroponics or in school-owned or community gardens if the soil and compost in which the produce is grown meets the standards adopted in 35 Ill. Adm. Code 830.503, if applicable, and the produce is served in accordance with the standards adopted in 77 Ill. Adm. Code 750.”
Boot Camp Presentations
Learn farm to school program tips with these presentations from the Central Illinois Farm to School Boot Camp (October 15, 2019).