The Montana Farm to School Institute is ayear-long program that kicks off with a three-day Summer Retreat in summer 2022 in the Livingston area. This new program is intended to ignite, grow, and sustain farm to school action within Montana schools and communities by providing training and support, and facilitating team building and action planning.

The goal of the Institute is for farm to school teams representing Montana schools or school districts to develop one-year farm to school action plans which will be implemented during the 2022-2023 school year. Action plans will encompass goals, activities, roles, and timelines focused on the three core elements of farm to school – local procurement, education, and school gardens/farms. In addition to developing action plans, teams will be connected to information, ideas, tools, resources, programs, and people to successfully implement their action plans through the sessions at the Summer Retreat.

Three school districts will be selected from across the state to participate in this first year. Each team, ranging from five to eight members of the school community, will be assigned a trained Farm to School Coach who will help facilitate the process of developing an action plan during the Institute and will support the team with implementation of the plan during the 2022-2023 school year. Activities at the Institute will help to strengthen your farm to school team and ensure that there is full “buy-in” for the action plan.

Join us on Tuesday, March 1 at 3-4pm MST to learn more about the program and to ask questions. The webinar will be recorded and posted on this webpage later that week.