Eating Well on the Farm- local, seasonal, organic, nutritious

We believe that regenerating agricultural, ecological and social systems can transform personal and community health and improve our impact on Earth. Farm Discovery creates safe, inspirational spaces to collaborate with youth and families to co-create, and become leaders in food, farming, nature and community – leading transformation to strong, unified, thriving people, families and communities. How we do it:
• Shaped by the needs identified by our community, our educational programs inspire youth and families to have agency in their relationship to food, farming and nature.
• We steward our working farm and its wild spaces as an environmentally and economically viable piece of the food system and a safe, welcoming and affirming learning space.
• We collaborate with partners to learn from each other and extend our collective impact in the community.
KEY ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Our recent accomplishments range from organizational-level growth to improved data collection, enhanced program development and piloting, as follows:
• Operate a year-round garden and demonstration farm within the production farm that includes animals - accessible to the Santa Cruz County community.
• Operate a kitchen classroom to teach youth to cook — fresh, local seasonal and nutritious.
• Scholarships for 43% of summer camp and field trip participants — 530 scholarships for underserved local youth.
• Bus transportation for field trips for 250 Pajaro Valley underserved youth.

THE DIFFERENCE WE MAKE
Our youth make a profound connection with the hard labor of farm work, and the people in their lives who do that work, in addition the land and food. Youth and families develop marketable skills in growing, cooking and preserving food to meet the basic need of nutrition. A few of their comments:

“My grandpa and my dad have worked in agriculture and seeing them come home, I knew that it was hard work and hard labor, but it wasn’t until I came here and started working out in the fields, that I realized how much labor it actually is, especially in the summer planting and harvesting and growing. I have so much appreciation for where my food comes from and the work that my dad and grandparents have done. It’s made me more humble knowing where my family works and knowing what they go through to put food on the table for us. -Andrea, Junior Staff, Summer 2019

“Even though my students all come from somewhere in the Pajaro Valley, they are not all familiar with how a plant grows or how important farms are to us. Live Earth is a farm of unmatched beauty and wonder. It has been an amazing place for my students to experience farming with their senses and come to understand the depth and breadth of what happens on a farm and how it improves life for all of us." -Ruth Camburn, Green Valley Christian School, Spring 2019

GOALS & DREAMS
Since our founding in 2007, Farm Discovery has been working hard to serve as many youth as possible. We are now investing in our staff, board and organizational infrastructure. We are stronger and more effective as a result.

In 2020 our top goals, with costs, are as follows:
Farm & Education Internship: one intern, 10 months — $30,000
Intern program development, evaluation methodology, training — $20,000
Data collection & program evaluation (using Salesforce) one year — $7,500
Expand scholarships from 530 youth to 20% increase (635 youth) — $15,000
Bus transportation, 100 more youth (250 to 350), 4 field trips — $2,000
Convert portion of Education Fields to no-till — $10,000