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When Alice Waters visited the city last week, she did more than help raise money for the new Edible Schoolyard at the Greensboro Children’s Museum. She also advanced a national campaign to add vegetable gardens and serve healthier, locally produced meals in all public schools.

“This program, I’m not just thinking about this for Greensboro or Berkeley,” Waters told a group of policymakers and community leaders on Friday. “I have a very big agenda that this is for every child in the United States. Every child should be fed for free, and they should have a wholesome, delicious lunch.”

High childhood rates of obesity and diabetes have motivated parents, politicians, educators, and health officials to re-evaluate the types of foods served in cafeterias and how they influence lifelong dietary habits.

Some groups also want to teach students environmental stewardship and use the buying power of institutions to support family farms and local economies.

Thus, two new models have emerged over the past several years to challenge the status quo: farm-to-school meal preparation and seed-to-table classroom curricula.

• So far, about 30,000 people across the country, including at least 300 in Greensboro and Winston-Salem, have signed a Slow Food USA petition requesting more federal funding for more healthful school meals and garden projects.
• The U.S. Department of Agriculture will allocate $50 million for schools to buy locally grown food and update purchasing guidelines to make the task easier.
• At least 39 states across the country have Farm to School programs, according to the National Farm to School Network. Guilford County Schools and other districts purchased $685,000 worth of North Carolina-grown produce in 2008-09. Still, that figure represents a fraction of what’s served in cafeterias.

Toni Jones, president of the Guilford County PTA Council, said she is tired of her son’s school serving pizza and tacos, and she believes students need a stronger connection to the food they eat.

“Just think about the kids who eat fast food even at home,” Jones said. “Wouldn’t it be nice if they see a difference, that there is a home-cooked meal and not just something you hold in a napkin while on the go?”

School board member Paul Daniels also acknowledged the disconnect between children and food. His family started a garden this year and his 16-year-old daughter didn’t understand the origins of supermarket produce, he said.

But Daniels questioned pushing food changes at the schools as a board priority.

“It’s always going to boil down to, I’ve learned, money,” he said. “One of the things the board faces is biting off more than we can chew and getting sidetracked on issues that are not as important. So we have to weigh that.”

But some local schools started asking deeper questions on their own about the role growing and eating fresh produce can have in nurturing healthy lifestyles and building community.

Employees and students at Peeler Open Elementary maintain an extensive flower and vegetable garden, compost pile and several rain barrels. The 10-member garden committee has discussed adding a fruit orchard, fresh fruit Fridays, a salad bar, and a community garden.

Students also sold $50 worth of vegetables to parents at an after-school “farmers market.” And last week, they cooked pasta from scratch in an upgraded cooking lab.

For now, Peeler concerns itself more with weeding the garden beds than developing a comprehensive edible curriculum, said Principal Marshall Matson.

“We’re not looking to make a connection between the food we grow and our cafeteria,” he said. “We think that’s just too much. But it has caused us to talk about what happens in our cafeteria.”

Current efforts, though sporadic, do benefit students at Peeler and other district schools. Fifth-grader Jawuan Lewis said the Peeler garden motivated him and his father to start one at home this year.

“It was pretty good,” he said about the results. “The only thing that didn’t work were the cucumbers.”

And a federal grant pays for students at Frazier Elementary to snack on fresh vegetables and fruit.

“We have seen a change with our families,” said Principal Laverne Bass. “At home, the kids are asking for fruit and vegetables more than they are asking for the sweets.”

Contact Morgan Josey Glover at 373-7078 or morgan.josey@news-record.com