West Marin organics a hit in schools across county
Do Marin County’s high school students eat their greens? They do when those greens are organic, and grown in West Marin.
That’s what Sandy Partee, canteen manager at Sir Francis Drake High School in San Anselmo, said as she unloaded boxes of zucchini and yellow cucumbers from the Allstar Organics farm in Nicasio (run by Woodacre residents Marty Jacobson and Janet Brown) off the back of a delivery truck.
"This is really exciting," Partee said. "[Students] love it. This is a big deal for Drake High School."
The deliveries were part of the Organic School Lunch program – now in its second year – run by Point Reyes Station-based nonprofit Marin Organic and the Marin Food Systems Project. Last year, Marin Organic executive director Helge Hellberg said, about 12,000 pounds of food were delivered.
Roughly a dozen organic farmers, most of them based in West Marin, contribute to the program. Fruits and vegetables that might otherwise be left in the field because of what farmers call "cosmetic" faults – zucchini that are too large, for example, or crooked carrots – are donated to almost 70 schools. Social-services centers, such as the San Rafael-based Canal Alliance and the Novato homeless shelter New Beginnings, also receive food.
