Sherwood Montessori Garden-Kitchen Program

Sherwood Montessori's core values and mission are consistent with Dr. Maria Montessori's method of educating the whole child, while fostering a learning environment conducive to improving quality of life both locally and globally, maximizing each child's potential through ecological consciousness, mentor-mentee based teamwork and other life skills modalities. Dr. Montessori coined the term, "Erdkinder"...Earth Children...and I believe it to be true that I would not have this job if it were not for these (school director Michelle Yezbick's) seed-to-fork values. I started this program when the school opened in 2010 and immediately began to bring to life additional school mission statement mandates: every Friday on-site farmers' market; cookbook publishing; community outreach; and philanthropy. This small (150 students) public no-tuition K-8 charter school in Chico, CA  has become a "full circle" model. We recently published our third cookbook (the first two were vegetarian, this latest one, Grow Cook Share, is vegan); we have an ongoing CSU Chico Nutrition Department internship program; connections to Slow Food both here (National School Gardens Program) and abroad (I will be presenting Grow Cook Share at Terra Madre this year, as I did in 2014 with our last cookbook Grow Cook Eat); organized community volunteerism and gleaning; and at-our-cost events held for low-income families with developmentally disabled and cancer patient kids. I hope you will get a chance to read Grow Cook Share. It explains all of this in vivid detail.