Dufrocq Elementary School/ Slow Food Baton Rouge

Greauxing Healthy Baton Rouge is Slow Food BR's farm-to-school program. It is a replication of the Sustainable Food Center's Sprouting Healthy Kids program in Austin, TX. In our first year, we are working with about 100 students and three teachers at Dufrocq Elementary. The students with whom we currently work form two in-school MicroSociety ventures and meet for 3 hours per week. Dufrocq's MicroSociety is an in-school program in which all students, three times a week, transition from normal classes to the "Crawfish Bayou" MicroSociety, with students becoming managers, employees, congresspeople and civil servants with the town's numerous businesses, agencies, and governmental organizations. Our goal, simply put, is to teach students where their food comes by bringing thriving organic farms to the Crawfish Bayou society. These ventures teach children the importance of eating local, healthy foods and how to do so, will provide a hands-on, interdisciplinary extension to their regular coursework, and will serve as a bridge from parents and children to the broader Baton Rouge food community. Our ultimate goal is to see students become excited about healthy foods and interested in taking on leadership roles both in and out of school. Parents and teachers have already expressed overwhelming interest in expanding our capacities beyond what our current level of funding will allow. With a grant from the Whole Kids Foundation, we will be able to expand to work with an additional two Montessori classes outside MicroSociety hours and form a permanent relationship with the school's thriving Big Buddy after-school program.