Somerville Public Schools Farm to School Program

The following description is a summary of our farm to school plan funded by a 2014 USDA Farm to School Program grant: Somerville Public Schools will implement a grant to benefit nearly 5,000 students in a richly diverse community. Somerville is a dense urban city adjacent to Boston, with a population of 75,754 residents packed into 4.1 square miles. Somerville is thirteenth largest city in Massachusetts and one of the most economically, culturally, and linguistically diverse, bringing together recent immigrants from all over the world and generations of families who have made Somerville their home for decades. 69.2% of Somerville Public Schools students qualify for free or reduced lunch and more than half (51.1%) list a first language other than English. This planning grant would allow Somerville Public Schools and partners to strategically align, implement new programs and expand existing farm to school efforts, conduct a needs assessment and menu audit to determine next steps in developing a district-wide farm to school plan, identify local food vendors and products that can be introduced into school menus, and develop a comprehensive long‐term strategy that supports local sourcing and brings the community together in promoting farm to school efforts as a way of life.