Farm to Cafeteria

The s’Cool Food Initiative  is a project of the Orfalea Fund.  In keeping with its long history of involvement in children’s health and education initiatives, the Orfalea Fund devoted the 2007-2008 school year to conducting a comprehensive, county-wide, school food needs assessment and educational campaign focusing on the connection between school food and the health of the community.  The findings from this assessment resulted in recommendations directed at improving school meal programs while simultaneously improving community health.  Many of these recommendations are now being implemented in Santa Barbara County school districts. A summary of this assessment can be found here.

The Orfalea Foundations’ three other current initiatives include Aware and Prepare, the Outdoor Classroom Project, Preschool Food and Explore Program.  For more information on The Orfalea Foundations, please visit www.OrfaleaFoundations.org.s’Cool Food’s Farm to Cafeteria component has a simple objective: to connect local farmers with school kitchens. With an abundance of agricultural products and farms of all sizes, Santa Barbara County serves as an ideal location for this effort.

Currently, multiple school districts throughout the county are implementing Farm to Cafeteria strategies for local purchasing. While no one size fits all approach exists, s’Cool Food works to ensure effective and efficient implementation strategies that are best suited to a particular school district and participating farmers.

Our Farm to Cafeteria program, however, does not operate in a vacuum and requires other critical elements to enable it to function properly. It is only through the holistic implementation of other programs such as our Culinary Boot Camp for school food service staff, Jr. Chef Day events and s’Cool Gardens programs for students, and Strategic Funding for equipment and infrastructure that our Farm to Cafeteria program can become truly sustainable.