SchoolsRule Sonoma County Helps Jumpstarts Windsor Middle School’s Farm-to-Fork Culinary Garden

Windsor Middle School is set to roll out a Farm-to-Fork Culinary Garden program, a yearlong elective that will allow students to grow and cook their own food while delving into topics such as life sciences and nutrition.  

The program will officially kick off next school year, though students have already begun restoring garden spaces on the campus through participation in a weekly garden club and community service hours, Windsor Middle School teacher Katie Coursey said. 

The program received support from SchoolsRule Sonoma County, a fundraising initiative that supports local public schools, by way of the Windsor Education Foundation. The foundation was a recipient of the initiative’s first distribution in September and contributed a portion of the $10,000 it received to the middle school program.  

“This project exemplifies what we try to do, which is providing the funding that sparks these kinds of projects and really benefits the students,” Windsor Education Foundation President Diahanna Post said. “That’s what we’re all about — supporting kids.”

Coursey, an English and AVID teacher at Windsor Middle School, said she agreed to revive the school’s garden program with a farm-to-table emphasis last fall. While 17 raised beds from a previous garden program were already on the campus, there were several additional projects that needed to be done ahead of the program launch. 

“There were weeds everywhere, and the soil was all impacted, so we kind of had to start from scratch,” Coursey said. 

The financial support for the program has allowed Coursey to purchase knee pads, seeds, pollinator plants, an airfryer, and a mulcher that will allow students to make their own compost, among other items. In addition to an area with the raised beds, a second space on the campus will allow students to work at picnic tables as they prepare food.

“This time next year, we’ll have the garden, we’ll have a beehive, and we’ll have the outdoor kitchen,” Coursey said. “It will be a really interesting experience, and I’ll be really excited to see what the kids are into.”

To learn more about how the Windsor Education Foundation supports students in the Windsor Unified School District — and how you can get involved — visit windsorwe.org/home. To explore the broader impact SchoolsRule Sonoma County has at public schools and districts throughout our region, visit Our Impact page.