Mill City Grows fosters food justice by improving physical health, economic independence, and environmental sustainability in Lowell through increased access to land, locally-grown food, and education. Mill City Grows creates and manages school and community gardens, grows produce on three urban farms, trains gardeners, provides food and nutrition education to Lowell Public School students, and increases access to local food. Mill City Grows has installed 14 school gardens within the Lowell Public School District. Lowell Public Schools (LPS) educates more than 14,000 students in grades PreK -12 each year. In an average year student participation in LPS’s school meals program is 78% for lunch and 60% for breakfast. The LPS Food and Nutrition Service’s overall 2019-2020 food costs were $2.3 million and local procurement accounts for approximately 30.3% of all food cost, and 23.7% of all produce costs.

The close partnership that exists between Lowell Public Schools Food and Nutrition Program and Mill City Grows will allow FoodCorps members to work cohesively on districtwide initiatives that support the district’s Farm to School Strategic Plan. This includes: supporting hands-on Food Service Farm to School trainings, creating promotion including farm videos, cooking videos and food service spotlights, recipe development with local products and student, teacher and family engagement to increase morale and collect feedback on the school meal program. Additionally, FoodCorps members will provide garden support and coordination amongst the district’s 15 school school gardens by working closely with each schools’ leadership team (comprised of administrators, teachers, school support staff, and parents) in conjunction with Mill City Grows Education Coordinator. FoodCorp members will also have one “home-base” school where they provide programming and classroom education through approximately 3, 5-week sessions of FoodCorp curriculum in the classroom during the school year. Lastly, FoodCorp members will have the opportunity to opt into 1-2 additional food justice and/or food access projects currently underway in Lowell — whether that is co-managing a monthly school district food bank that services 250 families; working on Mill City Grows’ production farm; helping teach Farm to Table Family Cooking Classes or hosting food/nutrition workshops with community partners.