In Redmond: Weekly take-home garden & nutrition kits

Tracy at Grab and Go

Earlier this month, I was supposed to start working in John Tuck Elementary School to support their school garden and related programming through a Farm to School Grant from Oregon Department of Education. When schools closed, we quickly pivoted and began collaborating with various partners to develop a plan to provide Grab & Go Garden and Nutrition Activity packets each week at Redmond School District’s school meal distribution site.

Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom has been a great partner is providing materials for us to distribute, and we’ve complemented those lessons with weekly story-time videos from our FoodCorps Service Member, Tracy. Check out our garden playlist on YouTube to see all our story times, as well as weekly how-to videos I made with my daughter for easy garden activities to do with kids at home. Check back weekly for new content! Here’s our latest video, In the Kitchen With Nora, in which she explains and demonstrates what a Food Hero is.

Here are links to our April packets. For teachers, you can request materials from Oregon Agriculture in the Classroom, and for parents, most of the supplies are simple enough that you might even have them at home. The ‘Grab & Go’ sheets we put together each week complement the lesson with links to supporting videos and additional resources (all linked and available below), along with materials and copies of the lesson plan, also linked below.

Living Necklace

Mindful Eating

Seed Soil Sun & See Them Sprout

Give Me Five

Each week we’ve seen between 100-150 families, handing out materials for around 300 kids.

It’s been fun to hear back from families about their experience with the previous week’s lesson. One family even hung their living necklaces from their car rear view mirror to show us their progress! We plan to continue this weekly through the school year time frame.

Stay tuned for more weekly how-to videos, story times, and updates on our Kansas Avenue Learning Gardens’s progress as it continues to be planted out to grow food for The Family Kitchen.