iGrow Sonoma and the School Garden Network of Sonoma County

Sonoma County is an area with tremendous resources for harvesting, producing, preserving and investing in healthy food and sustainable farming. iGrow Sonoma is a website, with an accompanying blog, that lists numerous organization and businesses sharing ideas and cultivating relationships through networking events intended to support and encourage the communities to stay thriving.

There are also many local schools that support community gardens. The School Garden Network of Sonoma County is an organization that “supports and promotes sustainable garden and nutrition-based learning programs in Sonoma County schools, connects school communities with fresh, locally grown foods, and provides a forum for exchanging information and resources. We empower youth to embrace healthy eating habits and to develop respect for and stewardship of all living things.”

The mandate of the School Garden Network is “to teach students to enjoy growing, cooking and eating fresh produce. This will provide them with life-long knowledge that can help to protect them from the current epidemic of child obesity.

To bring the garden into the tightly scheduled school day, garden-based curriculum has been developed for most academic subjects, especially in elementary school. The most obvious connections are to science and nutrition, but gardens are also often used for teaching English, math, art and social science. In secondary school, a garden can be a laboratory for teaching environmental science, horticulture and culinary arts.”

Hip Chick Farms applauds the School Garden Network of Sonoma County for their invaluable role in assisting to promote healthy communities through education and programs designed to teach children the importance of nurturing and caring for the world around them.

CropMobster and Our Sustainable Communities

The Hip Chick’s farm is located in Sebastopol, California, a stunning rural area in Sonoma County about 52 miles north of San Francisco. As business owners and active members in our community we are very appreciative for the thriving sustainability that exists in both Sebastopol and in Sonoma County. At Hip Chick Farms we source local ingredients for our organic, free range chicken products, and we actively contribute back to the community by donating a portion of our sales to various non-profit organizations investing in the protection and betterment of the environment and our local farms and natural food businesses. CropMobster is one of the organizations we wholeheartedly support. This is an organization that “links communities in-need with local farmers, producers and food purveyors who need a hand or have excess food to sell or donate.” By preventing local food waste they are successfully eradicating hunger by transforming waste into meals and nourishment for hunger-relief groups and individuals who need help. They are also effectively feeding the sustainability chain through promotion and support of local farms and food companies.

Hip Chick Farms believes in giving back to our community and finding creative and innovative ways to protect and balance our natural resources, so we are grateful for organizations like CropMobster and we appreciate all the good work they do to help spread the incredible wealth around us.

For more information about CropMobster, you can read about them in the Certifiable Foodie’s June 12, 2013 article here.

CROPMOBSTER