Teaching Young People About Local Food Matters
Each month, we send out a newsletter exploring a different aspect of our work. Read our September 2026 newsletter to learn how youth education supports a local food system.
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Questions about where food comes from, how it’s grown, and what nourishes our bodies can feel complicated and overwhelming for anyone, especially young people. Hands-on experiences make those questions tangible. Young people can grow food, prepare it, preserve it, share it, and begin to understand how all the pieces of a local food system fit together.
For every young person we connect with, there is an opportunity for one more person to understand where their food comes from. They see how plants and seeds connect to the world around us. They understand how they play a part in strengthening their local food community. Wherever they live and whatever path they take, we hope they carry that understanding with them into the years ahead.
Youth Growing Together
By Youth Education Director Jesse Wilson
Each week during the school year, we work with young people in six different youth-led community gardens. Together, they grow food, learn to observe, explore the science and art of growing, discover the ecology of their surroundings, and practice working together.
Teaching young people about local food matters because food has the power to connect. Food connects children with the knowledge of how to grow and prepare food, knowledge we all have a right to have. This gives them greater agency in their own lives.
Growing food connects young people with community land: land that belongs to all of us. Through that connection, they can develop a sense of place and purpose, and a feeling of belonging to something larger than themselves.
Food also connects children with their neighbors. When young people share what they grow, prepare food together, or carry a basket of vegetables home to their families, they experience what it means to contribute: to their family, their neighborhood, and their community.
Feb. 24, 2026 - Abundance at the Southwest Advocacy Guild garden!
March 3, 2026 - Beautiful spring day planting in the Duval Garden!
When we give people the opportunity to grow, share, and prepare food together, we are witnessing the beginnings of a future local food community rooted in care and connection. When a child digs in the soil, watches a seed become a plant, or brings home food they helped grow, they begin to see themselves as part of something larger.
Being part of a garden community also offers a tangible way to practice a timeless principle: do unto others as you would have others do unto you. Care for the garden, and it will care for you. Care for the earth, and the earth will care for you. Care for your neighbors, and your neighbors will care for you.
As one teen put it, “We can build community just by coming here to garden.”
We see this spirit in the actions of the children we work with every day. We see them carefully protect a garden from a cold snap. We see them cook meals to share with their families and neighbors. And we see them return to the garden because they know they will spend time with adults who listen, who are patient, and who take them seriously. In turn, we see young people practicing that same patience and care with others: with people, insects, plants, and the living world around them.
This season, students made pickles and jams, harvested fruits, vegetables, and herbs, prepared soups, greens, and dumplings, saved seeds, and even transformed garden plants into dyes and paints. We frequently hear kids express delight in learning something new. Often, their greatest excitement is telling a family member or friend what they have learned.
May 7, 2026 - Pickle time with donations of cucumbers from Siembra Farm and Stoke!
To me, that is the power of local food education. It is not only about learning where our food comes from. It is about learning that we can participate in growing our own food, participate in a flourishing local economy, and be a real part of the community. Being part of the local community in real, tangible ways helps us see the world right in front of us with new eyes. We feel more steady, grounded, safe, and interconnected.
We also visit local farms, like Nicoya, that help us see what it means to grow food on a larger scale, and how farming can be a full-time job and source of income. Seeing that directly, that good farmers care for the land, grow nourishing food, and sell that food to take care of their own families and land, also highlights the importance of a local economy in general. Students, especially the older teens we work with, can really start to see how the dollar they spend with a farmer or other local business stays here in town.
Local Food Connection
By Online Market Director Jasmine Angelini-Knoll
Jan. 29, 2026 - Aviva of Nicoya shows students what’s growing in their field
In January, I had the opportunity to join a field trip to Nicoya Farm with one of the afterschool garden classes, the George Washington Carver Science Club hosted by the Cultural Arts Coalition. After an opening circle, the students ventured out into the fields to harvest vegetables from a pick list that farmer Aviva wrote out for them.
We washed the veggies in the packing shed. Then, in two teams, they set up small farmstands with their harvest for the adult chaperones to shop from. They created names for their farmstands, set prices for each item, and made signs for their veggie displays. Afterwards, we all snacked on carrots and lettuce and some precious Sungold tomatoes that were still producing in Nicoya’s high tunnel. There was also plenty of produce for the kids to take home.
The experience of traveling out to the farm, seeing the fields where crops grow, and getting to harvest vegetables and eat them right away is special, not to mention getting to meet and spend time with the farmers that tend those fields and bring those vegetables to local markets.
Engaging with the harvest process seemed to invigorate the kids’ curiosity and excitement for “selling” and tasting the fresh veggies. Gaining exposure to these places and experiences at a young age leaves a lasting impression on kids, contributing to their awareness and appreciation of local farms and fresh produce.
Giving Gardens
By Seed and Garden Director Melissa DeSa
Our work with seeds is enriched because we connect with young people. We often get to work with college-aged volunteers and interns through the University of Florida’s Field & Fork Campus Food Program. They bring excitement, curiosity, fresh perspectives, and open minds to the work we do. We get to share with them our love for building a food community starting with local seeds, and share all that we have learned and put into practice.
Students may already be learning about farming and food systems through their studies or hands-on work at the campus farm, but something often clicks when they see how much begins with a seed, and how that seed is produced.
University of Florida students sift seeds at our seed gardens
Some of our best conversations happen when we gather around a pile of seeds, separating them from their pods and husks while talking about plants and food, and our own personal connections and experiences with them. Young people remind us to look at our work with fresh eyes. Their questions, enthusiasm, and eagerness to learn are invaluable.
Just as plants adapt and change over time in response to the conditions around them, our work needs to grow and respond to the people and communities around us. Building genuine connections with young people helps us stay curious, keep learning, and allow our work to evolve.
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