Farm to School is a national program that has three components: school garden installation, garden education, and local food procurement. The Big Garden Farm to School program began in 2015 in Southwest Iowa through a partnership with Golden Hills RC&D and expanded into Omaha that same year. We install edible school gardens and bring our educators into the classroom to share gardening, cooking, nutrition, and preserving skills. During the growing season, food produced in the school garden is used for snacks and distributed to families for use at home. This program connects participants with their local food system as they enjoy local food snacks, meet local farmers, and even visit farms in the area.

In a normal year, our garden educators travel around the Omaha metro area, teaching hands-on gardening skills to children through our Farm to School program. Since the COVID pandemic began, we have had to adapt, and our programming looks a little different. We have worked with professional videographers to translate the basic content of our classes into bite-sized online video lessons. These lessons are geared for children ages 3-12 with adult assistance and include an activity and snack suggestion based on the lesson. They may be accessed by teachers, parents, or other caregivers who wish to provide their children with the opportunity to engage with their garden, learn basic food-growing skills, and develop healthy eating habits.

At the Big Garden, we rely on kind givers like yourself to keep our doors open and our education programs running.
Please consider donating today!

Bite-Sized Video Lessons

Spring Series

Fall Series