Active Programs & Current Partnerships
This page highlights several of our active initiatives that bring people closer to sustainable agriculture, education, and community engagement. Here you will find information about our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program, internship opportunities, and our Farm-to-School efforts. Each program plays an important role in strengthening relationships between farmers, students, and community members while promoting access to fresh, locally grown food and agricultural education. Explore the sections below to learn how you can participate or support these ongoing programs. 🌱
Each summer, Noyo Food Forest offers a seasonal CSA featuring fresh, sustainably grown produce from our Learning Garden.
During the summer months, when school is not in session and we are not supplying produce to the school cafeteria, our CSA helps us share the harvest directly with our community.
Our CSA is closely connected to our Internship Program. Student interns help harvest, wash, and pack each week’s boxes, gaining hands-on experience in small-scale farm production and distribution.
By joining our CSA, you support paid youth internships while enjoying fresh, garden-grown food.
Interested?
Please contact admin@noyofoodforest.org for details and availability
Learn the plant. Learn the soil. Learn the systems that feed our community.
Noyo Food Forest’s Youth Internship Program is a paid, hands-on agricultural training program offered in the summer, fall, and spring. Based at our Learning Garden on the Fort Bragg High School campus, students gain real-world experience in regenerative farming, food production, and local food systems.
Interns participate in every stage of small-scale farm operations, including:
Seeding and propagation
Bed preparation and planting
Irrigation and soil care
Composting and sustainable pest management
Harvesting and post-harvest handling
Packing produce for our CSA and Farm to School programs
Through this work, students build job skills, leadership experience, and a deeper understanding of climate-smart agriculture and community food access.
This program is supported by Fort Bragg Unified School District and Mendocino Coast Children’s Fund. A year-round Garden Educator leads and mentors interns, making this program possible.
We are always seeking additional support to sustain and grow this paid internship opportunity for local youth.
Find out more about our internship program Here
The Noyo Food Forest is proud to be part of a movement that is changing the way kids eat.
Farm-to-School Programs are growing around the country, bringing healthy local food into schools. Pilar Gray, Director of Nutrition Services for Fort Bragg Unified School District, explains how we’re making this work in Fort Bragg, California.
“Farm-to-School is also about bringing locally grown produce into our cafeterias and classrooms. It includes getting students involved in gardening. When students plant, tend, and harvest their own crops, they are far more likely to actually eat them! There was a day, long before this era of plastic wrapped lunches, when all school meals were cooked from scratch. Then, when school districts across the country were driven to cut costs anyway they could, they were forced to bring in pre-packaged, overly processed ‘foods’ to save money. Encouraged and supported by a very powerful industry, this has made the unhealthiest foods the most affordable – to everyone, not just schools. We, as an educational institution, must do our part to undo this terrible turn of events. As educators we know that a child must be healthy in order to learn and live well. So, we’re working hard to go back where we started – back to cooking REAL food.”
The Noyo Food Forest is highly committed to making fresh, local, organic produce available to everyone regardless of socio-economic status, and provides discounted rates for the school district. However, this does have a financial impact on the organization, resulting in reliance of the support of volunteers and donations from the community.
Eating from the garden enables students to really connect to the source of their food, encourages healthy eating habits, maximizes quality across the board, makes sense environmentally and supports our local economy.
From EdSource, November 2012
Rural district serves as model for offering healthy meals
We are proud to partner with Camp Flockworks, hosting campers each summer at the Learning Garden for hands-on exploration of gardening and local food systems.
We also partner with the KUDOS After School Program, hosting students in the garden for hands-on learning experiences.
Check out some of our past partnerships and community collaborations here!