D.C. Farm to School Week and D.C. School Garden Week

This week, Oct 12 through the 16, marks a celebration of locally grown, seasonal food in school meals. We're also highlighting exciting efforts across Washington DC to create and maintain vibrant school gardens.

There was a fun kick off event held at Thurgood Marshall Academy and Savoy Elementary on Tuesday. The event kicked off with a speech from Deputy Secretary of Agriculture and healthy food supporter Kathleen Merrigan. Then Sam Kass from the White House revved up the audience for a battling chef competition, in which four local chefs were tasked with creating an exciting dish in thirty minutes that contained local apples.

Local apple tasting


DC Schoolyard Greening crew with Sam Kass

The students voted and the winning dish will be served in DC public school lunches.

Chef Lauren Von Der Pool

We then saw the brand new garden at the school, a joint project with Earth Day Network. Some sage and asparagus were planted, garden signs were painted, and a compost bin erected. Check out pictures of the awesome garden below. It sits right across the street from the Anacostia metro station, so lots of passersby saw and were curious about what was going on.