This summer marked our second year of half-day SFC field trips for local summer camps. We hosted 13 field trips (up one from last year!), and we were extra excited to be able to offer additional field trip scholarships this year. This year, seven of the field trips were from camps who serve mostly low-income campers and families, and we were able to provide a discount for their trip.

Having kids in the space brings a little extra noise and chaos, but it also brings us closer to our mission. 100% of camp staff surveyed said their campers now have a better understanding of where their food comes from!

Our returning visitors included:

Reach Beyond Mission: We developed an entirely new food justice curriculum for this group of middle and high school campers who visited during a week-long dive into food access. In their time with SFC’s Farm Direct, they learned how their food dollars are divided among farmers, workers, transportation, and more.

Foundation Communities’ M Station Learning Center: This group of elementary school students is right across the street from us, so they didn’t even need a bus to visit!

Indigenous Women’s Network and LifeWorks: Because of an existing camp partnership that pre-dates our building, these campers prepare their own lunch, including a rice salad with summer veggies, summer squash medley, and a yogurt sauce for fresh fruit.

Austin Nature and Science Center: On one of their trips, Austin Nature and Science Center got to try a brand new activity using arts and crafts to learn the parts of a plant.

Camp Olive: Camp Olive kids already knew a lot about healthy eating, but they loved getting involved in the kitchen. We used plastic knives to cut up cucumbers, and mixed with yogurt, lemon, salt, and herbs from the garden to make a healthy dip.

And joining us this year for the first time, we had:

ACE at Eastside Memorial: This was one of our smaller groups, but the high school students who visited were already involved with their school garden, so we got to have a much deeper discussion about what gardening means for food access.

Sunrise Neighborhood Youth Program: SNYP sent us four groups of students throughout the summer—some as young as four years old! For older groups who finished the cooking activities more quickly, we measured out how many spoonfuls of sugar are in the average soda. All agreed that cutting back on soda is a good idea, so we sampled a juice sparkler alternative that combines 100% juice with sparkling water for a drink that’s still bubbly and sweet, but with less than half the sugar.

Thanks to all our camp partners, and all our campers! Look for more on our very first week of summer camp in Thursday’s newsletter.