Mission
 
The mission of the Columbia County Farm to School program is to improve the health and well-being of county schoolchildren by fostering awareness of and engagement with local agriculture and its products.
 

Goals

• Improving the food choices, health, and nutrition of schoolchildren
• Strengthening school policies relating to food options, health, and nutrition
• Providing schoolchildren with nutrition and agriculture-related education
• Developing reciprocal connections between schools and children and the agricultural community
• Engaging schoolchildren and their families in hands-on food-related and agricultural activities
• Raising awareness of agriculture as a career option
• Having a positive impact on the local agricultural economy
• Establishing a long-lived program that will continually build on its successes

Project Partners:

[list in formation] Partners include all six public schools in Columbia County, the Chatham Real Food Market Co-op, Columbia County Bounty, Columbia County Planning and Economic Development, Columbia Land Conservancy, Community Agriculture of Columbia County, Cornell Cooperative Extension of Columbia and Greene Counties, Jill Eisenstein, Hawthorne Valley Farm including its Farmscape Ecology Program, Hudson-Mohawk Resource Conservation and Development Council, Hudson Valley AgriBusiness Development Corporation, Hudson Valley Bounty, Karyn Novakowski, Old Sawmill Farm, and Questar III.