Growing for our Local School System

For the past five years we’ve been selling to schools because we gained more land, wanted to diversify our sales channels to foster resilience and we LOVE feeding our school children for their lunches!

We first started working with Frederick County Public Schools who have been incredible partners – setting the example for other districts on how to incorporate local + seasonal foods into their menus. Next, we added Montgomery County Public Schools.

Finally, in 2024, Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE) awarded our farm a USDA Local Food for Schools subaward for the supply of produce to the central and western regions of Maryland. Under this grant, we delivered over 170,000 pounds of high-quality locally grown produce to 7 school districts within the state under the Local Food for Schools (LFS) program - the one that was recently canceled - to work with 12 districts across the state.

The Local Food for Schools program has been so important in expanding our impact to grow for more Maryland students. Without programs like this we wouldn't have been able to develop the pipelines and serve as many schools as we have over the years.

We’re proud to help MSDE’s efforts to expand the procurement of locally grown produce to our schools, in keeping with the state's mandate of 20% locally grown. We connected with School Food Authorities in a joint effort to increase the amount of locally grown produce offered on the cafeteria lines to students. Food service directors are unable to purchase many locally grown options because they lack the staff, equipment, and space to process raw produce on-site.

We collaborated with more local farms and processing facilities so we could offer minimally processed, ready-to-eat food items such as carrot coins, sliced apples and sliced pears to Maryland schools. These collaborations were highly successful and we have plans to offer even more ready-to-eat options processed from local produce in the future.

Here are some stats on the produce we grew for our schools!

We delivered a total amount of 232,223 lbs. of fruits and vegetables to all schools during this school year under two different grant and bid awards (MSDE orders plus orders delivered separately to Montgomery County Public Schools and Frederick County Public Schools under a separate RFP bid award).

Produce TOTALS:

Maryland Department of Education (MSDE):

174,023 lbs. fruits and vegetables

Montgomery County Public Schools:

47,840 lbs. apples

Frederick County Public Schools

Additional produce delivered: 10,360 lbs. fruits and vegetables

School Timeline

2025:

We grew for (7) Maryland counties:

• Allegany

• Carroll - 40 schools | 10,000 meals

• Frederick - 36 schools started receiving local produce, expanded to 68 schools by April 2025

• Garrettt

• Howard - 76 schools | 20,000 school meals a day

• Montgomery

• Washington

2024:

Expanded to schools in 7 Maryland counties with the MSDE Grant

2023:

Expanded to 9 schools in Frederick County, plus schools in Montgomery County.

2022:

Started with 2 schools in Frederick County.

We believe that small farms CAN feed the world, ESPECIALLY when we work together to access institutional customers like schools. That’s why the recent federal cancellation of Local Food for Schools (LFS) program hurts, as it empowered us small, diversified farmers to band together to access this customer base and pave the way for healthier, locally-grown food in schools.

What can you do?

Please urge your representatives to call on Secretary Rollins and the USDA to restore this program to support farmers and children. Additionally, support farmers with YOUR food purchases – we may need your support this year more than ever.

Share this blog post to help spread the word here and use your dollars to vote for the viability of organic and local agriculture by joining our CSA program! We are so grateful for your support!