CCSD Wins 2018 Golden Radish Award

WOODSTOCK, GA — The Cherokee County School District has been recognized for its commitment of providing farm-to-table nutritional options for its students. The district was recognized at the platinum level with a 2018 Golden Radish Award.

These awards publicly recognize Georgia school districts for best practices in farm to school programs, such as local food procurement, exposing students to new foods through taste tests and incorporating gardening and cooking activities in curriculum. CCSD was recognized for a myriad of reasons, including:

• Teachers using farm field trips, farm-based video lessons, planting sessions in school gardens, and cooking activities to provide integrated agricultural education within the established curriculum throughout the school year.
• Teachers, School Nutrition program staff, and volunteers throughout Cherokee County providing effort and financial resources to establish and maintain school gardens. Each of the 41 gardens is the result of a school-wide effort to foster learning and creativity among the students in an outdoor setting.
• School Nutrition managers at each school placing weekly fresh produce orders through Royal Food Service to reduce their carbon footprint and have the freedom to choose fresh, local fruit and vegetable options each week.

This is the second year the CCSD School Nutrition Department, which serves 5 million meals each year in school cafeterias, won the award from Georgia’s Departments of Agriculture, Public Health and Education, and Georgia Organics.

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Platinum is the highest recognition awarded to Georgia school nutrition programs for farm-to-school programs. In CCSD, this initiative includes serving locally grown food in cafeterias, teaching students science through school gardens, demonstrating how to cook healthy meals and more.

CCSD School Nutrition Director Tina Farmer accepted the award with School Board Members Patsy Jordan and Kelly Poole and Chief Financial Officer Ken Owen.

“At the Georgia Department of Education we’re focused on expanding opportunities for Georgia’s kids, and farm to school is a perfect example of that,” State School Superintendent Richard Woods said. “When students have access to fresh, local foods they’re better prepared to learn – and they can connect with Georgia agriculture, one of our state’s largest industries.”

CCSD was one of 84 school districts around Georgia recognized Monday at the awards ceremony. These districts collectively served more than 1.3 million students a whopping 109 million school meals with locally grown food items during the 2017-18 school year, Georgia Organics said.

Image via Georgia Organics