Santa Clara Unified School District

We are located on 11 acres of school district land, and Santa Clara Unified School District (SCUSD) is our primary partner in implementing Full Circle Farm’s planned programs. SCUSD serves over 14,000 students in a 56-square mile area, approximately 45% of which qualify for free or reduced school lunch. The District serves 7 ethnic subgroups, many socioeconomically disadvantaged, and spends a significant portion of its yearly budget addressing the needs of English-language learners. It also funds a special Migrant Education program designed to provide students of migrant and/or homeless families academic and emotional stability. SCUSD operates 16 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, 2 high schools, and 1 continuing education center. Despite serious budget restrictions, SCUSD has continually supported and funded educational programs for at-risk populations. The long-term vision for SCUSD is to close the achievement gap for its disadvantaged students. As a partner in the foundation of Full Circle Farm, SCUSD has donated District land at a below-market lease rate, plans to pilot a salad bar program in the District’s most under-served schools in order to integrate Full Circle Farm’s produce into free school lunches, and will foster curricular partnerships with interested faculty.

Community Alliance with Family Farmers

We are collaborating with the Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) to bring their exceptional educational and outreach programs to Santa Clara County. Having CAFF bring their operations to Santa Clara County would bring Full Circle Farm and the students of Santa Clara Unified School District, a well honed, proven educational program of local sustainable agriculture and the farmers that perform this important work. Full Circle will soon become become CAFF’s Santa Clara County home base for field trips, farm manager lectures to classes, and many other exciting campaigns to touch the students with local food production experiences.

Healthy Silicon Valley

We are partnering with Healthy Silicon Valley and their mission to make Silicon Valley the healthiest region in America. This strategic alliance has allowed us to effectively promote local, sustainable agriculture as both a environmental solution and an educational tool. Active participation in the Healthy Silicon Valley Food Providor’s Collaborative has made valuable professional connections, bringing together advocates and entrepreneurs from all sides of the food system.

Kaiser Permanente Santa Clara

We are proud members of Kaiser’s Health Eating Active Living (HEAL) Initiative, which strives to improve the food and physical activity environments of Santa Clara County schools. Support from the HEAL Initiative was instrumental in establishing the farm’s first infrastructure and community events, and we are looking forward to partnering with their wide array of health experts as we work to develop programs to encourage healthy living in both classrooms and cafeterias.

Children in Nature Collaborative

CINC is the Bay Area chapter of the Children & Nature Network, inspired by Richard Louv’s groundbreaking book, Last Child in the Woods which documented the need for time outdoors in natural environments as part of healthy childhood development. We are working with the collaborative to expand thinking on “natural environments” to include and celebrate agricultural spaces. This has led to many incredible opportunities to partner with similar nonprofits who are working toward different yet complimentary goals, and expanded the mission focus of Full Circle Farm to include unstructured time on the farm as part of our curriculum.

Stanford Prevention Research Center, Stanford School of Medicine

Dr. Christopher Gardener is a nutrition researcher at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. He is actively seeking funding to design and implement the most comprehensive evaluation of farm-based learning programs ever conducted. This study will be designed by a collaborative of Stanford researchers in nutrition and education departments. It will begin with a needs assessment of SCUSD’s health curriculum to help staff develop curriculum at Full Circle Farm which best fills in the districts most pressing educational ‘gaps’. From this point, researchers will systematically document students’ and families’ baseline data in order to be able to measure the impact of the farm’s programs as they are implemented.