by Elisa Williams

Harriet Tubman Village Charter School is very excited to announce that they will be
feeding their students from their own garden during the 2018-19 school year! In partnership with San Diego Unified and the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health, Tubman will be taking part in the Garden to Cafe Program. The Garden to Cafe Program allows schools to harvest the food grown in their own garden and serve it to their students during meal times. Tubman hopes that this program will help educate students about healthy food, how it is grown, and how to safely prepare it for eating.
In order to be part of the program, Tubman had to appoint members of the staff to be designated “garden coordinators” who are in charge of making sure the Garden to Cafe protocols are being followed and students are being served fruits and vegetables from a school garden that is considered a safe food source. Dave Yetz (Tubman’s Master Gardener) and Katie Dinh (Second Grade Teacher) are very excited take on the roles as garden coordinators. Both Yetz and Dinh have worked together regularly in past school years to share their passion of gardening and harvesting food with Tubman students. They made it official by going to a Garden to Cafe training, filing protocol paperwork for the school, passing a garden site inspection, and ultimately promising to work closely with Food Services throughout the year. Now that they have completed this process, Tubman is certified to serve food to students from their own garden! Dinh states, “Our goal is to create an awareness of growing and planting our own vegetables! We will be harvesting them at least once a month so all students can enjoy them during lunch.” This is all part of the schools anicative to focus on general health, which is highlighted in their new vision “Sound Mind. Sound Body. Sound Future.” Tubman wants their students to not only know what being healthy looks like, but know how to maintain a healthy lifestyle while in school and beyond.
Tubman is currently enrolling students for the 2018-2019 school year! You can find more information on the school and enroll your child easily online by visiting their website
www. tubmancharter.org
If you would like, please contact the office at 619-668-8635 to set up a tour of their campus.
For updates on all the exciting things happening at Tubman, please follow them on social media.
Facebook- @TubmanCharterSD
Twitter- @TubmanCharterSD
Instagram- @Harriet_Tubman_Village_Charter