Ten public schools in East Oakland, Calif., are helping provide affordable fresh produce in a community where you are more likely to find a liquor store than a piece of fruit.

In collaboration with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Alameda County Public Health Department, the East Bay Asian Youth Center and the Oakland Unified School District, the Oakland Farm to Schools program helps to bring together the Oakland community around eating healthy. It supports local farms, encourages healthier eating and provides alternatives to the large amounts of processed food distributed in public schools.

Each week farmers deliver produce to the same warehouse as the giant food distributor Sysco. The difference is that this food comes directly out of the ground instead of a large processing facility. The produce is packed by local hands and then sent, within one day, to be sold in the school markets. Our story follows the food from the farmer to the school market run by parents and students of a local Oakland public school.

Listen by clicking below.

Farm to School network, by OaklandLocalEditor

Learn more here and here.