Edible Schoolyard NYC’s mission is to support edible education for every child in New York City. We partner with New York City public schools to cultivate healthy students and communities through hands-on cooking and gardening education, transforming children’s relationship with food. Our program works to give children in New York City public schools access to healthy food through hands-on, positive experiences, providing knowledge and skills to take with them throughout their lives. At our two Demonstration and five Network Schools, we partner with public schools to teach garden and cooking lessons, run community and family programs, and work to incorporate a healthier food environment into all aspects of the school, from cafeteria to the classroom. Through citywide teacher training programs, we also give educators the knowledge, tools, and curriculum to incorporate edible education into their own classrooms.

Edible Schoolyard NYC’s Brooklyn and Bronx Network Schools are located in historically underserved neighborhoods that have been identified by the NYC Department of Health as having high rates of diet-related diseases and large numbers of children from low-income families. The Network Schools Program is a scalable model that brings edible education to five public schools in the Bronx and Central Brooklyn in partnership with FoodCorps. Edible Schoolyard NYC works closely with Network School staff and communities to build, expand, and maintain gardens, incorporate kitchen and gardening classes into the school day, and promote a culture of wellness through after school, cafeteria, family, and community programming. We collaborate with the school community and other local partners to promote healthy school environments and support each school communities? needs, goals, and resources. Each service member will support one of our Network Schools to incorporate a healthier food environment into all aspects of the school. Service members are expected to serve in the school community to create a shared vision and set goals for garden and cooking education during the school day, family and community programs, and cafeteria initiatives. For just a few examples, a service member can expect to co-teach garden and cooking lessons with classroom teachers, lead family cooking classes, develop and facilitate after school garden and cooking activities, help maintain a school garden, and provide tastings in the cafeteria. Our Brooklyn schools include Brighter Choice Community School in Bedford-Stuyvesant and Brooklyn Gardens Elementary School in East New York.

Our 4 FoodCorps service members at Edible Schoolyard NYC are part of the New Jersey/New York cohort that includes 16 members with 7 sites across 8 communities in New Jersey and New York City. With over 1.1 million students in over 1,800 schools, the New York City public school district is the largest in the country, and the need for school gardens and healthy food education is enormous. Nearly one in four children in New York City is food insecure, and this issue has a disproportionate effect on low-income communities and communities of color. Our service members in New York work to address these inequities in NYC by investing in key neighborhoods identified by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: the South Bronx (CDs 201-6), and North and Central Brooklyn (CDs 303-5, 316). In partnership with our main service site, Edible Schoolyard NYC, we work with school communities to promote healthy school food environments in ways that suit both the unique circumstances of NYC’s large, urban school system, and the individual cultures of our partner schools. Even in such a big city, the network of food education organizations is connected and collaborative. By serving in New York City, you will join a vibrant network of urban gardeners, food justice advocates, educators, and organizations that are working to change the food system both in schools and in the community at large. You’ll also access all of the benefits of living and working in one of the largest and most exciting urban hubs – and one of the greatest food cities – in the world.

Our full New Jersey/New York Cohort meets regularly throughout the year for state-based trainings with local leaders, growers and organizers to set our service members up for success for their 1-2 years of service. During the first month of service, members research and present on the place-based histories and current context of the communities we serve; are introduced to a wide variety of food justice and farm to school stakeholders at the state and local levels; practice active learning by planning and leading culturally relevant classroom lessons, garden activities and taste tests with their fellow service members before entering their schools; spend ample time cooking and sharing meals together, learning from each other, and building community as a cohort (AKA ‘cohort bonding’), and orienting themselves at their sites throughout August prior to the first day of school in September, all of which is necessary to serve our communities intentionally, respectfully and from a Community Assets Based Approach. Additionally, our service members participate in a wide variety of national, state, and site-based professional development and networking opportunities throughout the year that are necessary for our New Jersey/New York service members to advance in their chosen careers following their 1-2 years of service.