Our center is now open! Our cooking school is a city-run
community garden, headquarters, and student gardens managed
by our program staff.
Cooking School & Headquarters
In 2016, the Sacramento City Unified School District
voted unanimously for our nonprofit to
manage a cooking school and student gardens on 2.5 acres
on their Leataata Floyd Elementary campus. The 4,500 square
foot building has been designed by HMC Architects and is
funded by fees specifically designated for this
project by the developer of The Mill at Broadway, which
neighbors the school campus
Our New Center
This state-of-the-art, green facility being built will include
and support:
- Cooking School, where 30+ students will learn to cook healthy
meals.
- Prep Kitchen, where our staff and volunteers will prep food
and cooking supplies for after school programs across the school
district focused on Title 1 schools.
- Training & Office Space, where our staff will train future
instructors of our curriculum, and manage the day-to-day
operations of this 2.5-acre facility
- Community Programs, where we will host family cooking
classes, school field trips and more!
Cooking School Renderings
Directly behind our cooking school, is phase two of our
center, a 1-acre multi-use, outdoor classroom operated by Food
Literacy Center. Our farm is being designed with one goal in
mind: encouraging children to eat their vegetables. The open
space, designed to improve child health, is for students and
families to learn, play, and explore in an urban lot that was
once vacant. This site compliments our existing cooking and
nutrition programs by allowing students to grow food and engage
in active play.
Hands-on Learning
The type of education offered at Food Literacy Center also
matters. Children’s learning styles vary. Studies show that
students who practice what they’re learning in a hands-on
environment can often retain three and a half times as much as
opposed to just sitting in a lecture and listening. Students who
have difficulty learning for reasons of ESL barriers, auditory
deficiencies, or behavioral interference can be found to be on
task more often when they are part of the learning process and
not just spectators.
Programs
The new center will allow Food Literacy Center to:
- Serve elementary school students in afterschool programs
throughout SCUSD.
- Serve students at Leataata Floyd Elementary with school day
curriculum in cooking and gardening.
- Expand food literacy programming to reach more schools
throughout the district.
- Provide community and family cooking classes to the public.
- Implement cooking and nutrition classes such as food science,
biology, history, and culture through cuisine
- Provide garden education including plant biology, and
compost.
