Final report for ENE22-178
Project Information
Problem or Opportunity and Justification:
West Virginia farmers have the opportunity to increase market opportunities within their own communities. The passage of legislation in 2019, requiring 5% of institutional food purchasing to be locally sourced, creates a tremendous opportunity. Farm to School legislation and rollout in West Virginia has not adequately supported education and outreach to farmers, service providers, or community members.
The 2019 federal Farm to School legislation has also created greater challenges and confusion. The rollout approach that has been to separate Farm to School’s three main activities—improving nutrition education, increasing youth agriculture knowledge—into discrete and isolated goals for school systems. This has failed to acknowledge the interconnectedness of these three goals. Sprout School presented farmers, teachers, and community volunteers with an integrated approach that will advance all three.
Agricultural service providers needed additional support helping to serve as local liaisons between farmers and school systems. Farmers needed additional training and coaching on production planning and packaging requirements. Local procurement policies are often complicated and differ from county to county and sometimes even within the same district. Farmers were left to navigate this process themselves. Child nutrition directors often have many responsibilities outside of basic procurement. The result is frustration from all involved parties.
Solution and Approach:
Future Generations University created a tool kit and training program aimed at agricultural service providers to establish Farm to School programming with farmers, school system personnel, and community volunteers. Sprout School trained 64 service providers, across two cohorts of students, using a multi-faceted curriculum of Farm to School best practices. Each cohort consisted of traditional providers, educators, farmers, and community leaders. Out of these, 39 successfully implemented a farm to school project of their choosing and received a small stipend, while an additional 21 participated in Farm to School activities in their community without completing a project. This work led to 42 farmers reporting at least one institutional market relationship resulting in sales.
Each cohort of students completed a 9-month virtual training program. Additionally, participants had mandatory learning lab assignments that they completed in their communities. These real-world lab assignments guided participants through the steps of creating a successful Farm to School program. Attendees received monetary resources to execute the school production space and child nutrition education portions of Sprout School curriculum.
Participants were invited to join a network of Farm to School practitioners across the state. This network meets four times annually, to share successes, troubleshoot challenges, and learn from one another. These quarterly peer network gatherings provided opportunities to introduce experts in the field and help connect to existing resources. This peer-learning network has morphed into a larger state wide network of roughly 120 individuals, rebuilding the start of the farm to school system in West Virginia. This is continuing into a formalized support network (the WV Farm to School Alliance/Working Group) that is supported by the Benedum Foundation, the WV Department of Agriculture, and the WV Department of Education.
Sprout School trained educators, nutrition personnel, and traditional service providers in a framework to build the impact of West Virginia Farm-to-School operations through delivery of multi-media lessons, in-person workshops, best practice-based field trips, and applicable project implementation.
Educational approach
Sprout School is a comprehensive toolkit for agricultural service providers to ultimately increase access to markets. It supports community leaders, teachers, and farmers who want to be engaged with school garden components as well as education personnel who are responsible for child nutrition. Many of the current barriers to getting local food into local schools revolve around the missing link(s) between farmers and school personnel. Engaging youth in garden activities increases the likelihood that they will eat locally sourced menu items. Project activities, for the first six months, consisted of developing the Sprout School curriculum to train service providers by utilizing support from key team leaders and advisory members.
Engagement:
Sprout School relied on engaging both traditional agricultural service providers as well as leadership from within school systems and community members. All are key to building potential Farm to School linkages for local farmers. Agricultural service providers must be able to provide traditional support to farmers such as production planning and post-harvest handling while educational personnel must provide support for farmers around building relationships and youth educational opportunities within school systems.
Service providers were recruited from the existing nascent Farm to School network hosted by the WV Department of Agriculture, relationships with extension, and school system personnel. The historic WV School and Youth Garden support network relationships were utilized. Additionally, Future Generations University is in the process of seeking approval from the WV Department of Education for professional development credit for those who are working in school systems, which was an additional recruitment tool. A stipend was offered to participating service providers and education personnel to cover a portion of their time in class.
Two cohorts of service providers were recruited after the initial curriculum development. The initial cohort ran from February-October 2024, and the second cohort ran from October 2024-June 2025. Service providers implemented components of training with their recruited farmers and education staff at appropriate times during the school year.
Participants joined a peer learning network, meeting 4 times per year in person, with additional virtual opportunities, to ensure support at the conclusion of each cohort. This network allowed providers to support one another with intervention by Sprout School leadership as needed.
Learning:
Sprout School consists of a toolkit for Farm to School programs with case studies, bi-weekly virtual class instruction, and learning labs where service providers get to put into practice the material from virtual classes. Additionally, Future Generations facilitated an active peer network among service providers to support one another.
The created toolkit and modules highlighted all 6 components of a comprehensive Farm to School program, consisting of:
1) Local Sourcing
2) Local Foods Marketing
3) Local Food Policy
4) Nutrition Education
5) School Garden Education
6) Entrepreneurial Experiences for Youth
The every other week modules led service providers through the entire process of building Farm to School programs in their home communities. It utilized the convenience of online instruction to support participants with direct instruction, while they put concepts into practice. Service providers met once every two weeks for roughly an hour in a virtual classroom setting to take part in lectures and multi-media presentations. During this time, service providers were given time to ask questions about learning lab assignments and work together on challenges they are facing.
Learning labs guided service providers through the implementation of working with farmers and educators to implement Farm to School practices in their own home communities. Service providers were invited to network meetings and in person trainings four times annually.
Evaluation: Service providers kept a record of reflection on those implementation practices during the virtual course and learning labs. Completion of the learning labs showed that providers have gained knowledge and skills during the course. Surveys were delivered to each cohort of providers after each unit to show comprehensive gain in knowledge and skills and to gather feedback.
Milestones
Engagement: Advisory council meets monthly during the first six months of the project period and quarterly afterwards to ensure that toolkit and virtual class creation as well as service provider outreach and engagement are on target. The advisory team will provide guidance on initial toolkit and class creation as well as continual feedback as the course is implemented.
Status: Completed 11/5/2025
Accomplishments:
2022: The PI had a series of 1-1 meetings with advisory council members during the first 3 months of the project- to build stronger relationships with the council. During the following 9 months, the council has been meeting monthly (skipping June, November, and December 2022) to ensure that progress on the toolkit and class structure is progressing. It is anticipated that meetings will switch to quarterly in the 2023 year.
2023: The statewide Farm to School steering committee was revitalized and this advisory committee and it have merged. This is the steering committee and stakeholder group that will drive Farm to School based work in West Virginia forward, including Sprout School.
2024: The statewide Farm to School advisory committee has had regular quarterly meetings to identify continuing needs for educators, farmers, child nutrition directors, and others in the farm to school system. This team has also continued to adjust Sprout School to meet the needs of those in the farm to school system. Several members from the advisory committee are also featured speakers with Sprout School virtual sessions.
2025: The statewide Farm to School steering committee continues to meet quarterly and work through building support systems for Farm to School projects. This steering committee also hosted the first statewide Farm to School conference in November 2025 with 300 attendees ranging from child nutrition directors, farmers, educators, nonprofit partners, and community members.
Learning: Sprout School toolkit and virtual class created within the first 6 months of the project period. The creation of these two tools form the basis for service provider education. The toolkit itself will be what service providers utilize in their home communities to work with farmers, volunteers, students, and educators to implement Farm to School activities, while the virtual class will be the training created to teach service providers how to utilize the toolkit.
Status: Completed 6/1/2025
Accomplishments:
2022: Because it took more time than intended to build full relationships with the advisory council and to have them build relationships with one another, this milestone is still in progress. A curriculum and toolkit map has been created, illustrating what each module of the online system will encompass and its mapping back to the toolkit. Several modules are in draft form, for when the online training begins.
2023: Modules have been created for the first 9-month cohort and will be adjusted as the class continues. These are being hosted on Moodle as a course management system, and will be available to all participants.
2024: Baseline modules have been created, and have been utilized for one full cohort and are currently being used for the second full cohort of participants. The toolkits are being created in partnership with the West Virginia Department of Education in order to also meet the needs of their formula funding and to allow more people to get started with Farm to School work.
2025: All modules for 2 cohorts have been completed and recorded as live classes and are available for others to reference. Cohort 3 will continue with the basis of these modules with other funding.
Engagement: First cohort of 40 service providers will be recruited to attend Sprout School training in months 5-8 of the project. This cohort will be largely recruited based on relationships of project key personnel and the advisory committee. In addition to signing a formal agreement to fully participate in the training, a small stipend of $200 will be offered at completion of the training to ensure that service providers are engaged throughout the 9-month period.
Status: Complete 12/31/23
Accomplishments:
2022: Marketing materials have been created and will be utilized to recruit a cohort of service providers in February, 2023.
2023: This was delayed due to staff capacity; however the first cohort of service providers has been recruited and will begin January 23, 2024.
Learning and Evaluation: The first cohort of 40 service providers will take part in bi-weekly virtual classes focused on Farm to School concepts. These classes will provide guidance for service providers who are working with farmers and school personnel in their communities to implement Farm to School programs. Service providers will provide feedback on the virtual classes related to both knowledge gain and implementation plans.
Status: Completed 9/30/2024
Accomplishments:
2022: Not begun
2023: The first cohort of service providers has attended orientation and information sessions, with formal class beginning January 23, 2024.
2024: The first cohort of 36 service providers participated in Sprout School from January – September 2024. Although not all service providers completed projects, and not all fully completed the course, the majority of those signed up attended the majority of sessions. The Sprout School team redesigned some of the delivery to be more inclusive and able to reach people wherever they were at programmatically- a number of projects are actually being completed after 9/30/24 during the spring of 2025 to better align with school and growing season calendars. This cohort was made up of educators, farmers, community leaders, nonprofit staff, and informal youth outreach individuals. One individual from the corporate agricultural sector participated from Snowville Creamery in order to design curriculum which would go with their products into the school system.
Learning and Evaluation: The first cohort of 40 service providers execute learning labs with their communities to implement Farm to School practices with farmers, educators, youth, and nonprofit partners. These learning labs are designed to step the service provider through everything from recruiting farmers to sell to local school systems to assisting farmers with developing classroom relationships for visits and hands-on activities. Service providers will self-evaluate their efforts during this implementation process.
Status: Complete 9/30/2024
Accomplishments: 2024: During the 2024 cohort, 21 participants completed learning labs resulting in 12 separate projects (many doubled up or combined efforts on the same site for their projects). These projects were creative in nature and ranged from writing new curriculum focused on edible and dye flowers, to hosting farm tours for preschoolers, to creating an entire yoga and movement curriculum based on cows.
Evaluation: Based on feedback from the first cohort and input from the advisory committee, the second iteration of the Sprout School toolkit and class will be developed during months 15-18 of the project. This will include updates related to pacing, content, and the learning lab experience overall. For example, if it is found that service providers have a hard time engaging farmers during September or October because of harvest season, that portion of the lab series will be moved until winter to reflect this.
Status: Completed 10/15/2024
Accomplishments: 2024: Presentations and timing were adjusted to better reflect the natural pacing of the school year as well as the natural layering of educational concepts for Sprout School. This current iteration begins with community development and team building; transitions into project management and curriculum selection; then local sourcing, nutrition and nutrition education; and finishes with scaling up and sustainability.
Engagement: After one complete cohort, Future Generations University staff will work with the WV Department of Education to develop Sprout School as an official professional development opportunity for teachers and other school personnel. This will make engaging service providers and educators much easier once the project period has concluded.
Status: Completed 11/20/2025
Accomplishments: 2024: Future Generations University has worked with the Farm to School steering committee to have Sprout School be an approved curriculum for educators seeking professional development- this is an ongoing process. Evidence from year one has been submitted, but due to leadership changes it may take a significant amount of time for approval to happen. Even though approval has not happened yet, the WV Department of Education has circulated Sprout School materials to all education staff in the state for signs up and regional meetings.
2025: Future Generations University has submitted all required information for this to be counted as professional development and the review is in progress and awaiting the timeline from the West Virginia Department of Education. In the meantime, the university is working with the West Virginia Higher Ed Policy Commission to also have Sprout School count as a micro credential for other universities.
Engagement: Second cohort of 40 service providers will be recruited to attend Sprout School training in months 15-18 of the project. This cohort will be largely recruited based on relationships of project key personnel and the advisory committee. In addition to signing a formal agreement to fully participate in the training, a small stipend will be offered at completion of the training to ensure that service providers are engaged throughout the 9-month period.
Status: Completed 10/1/2024
Accomplishments: 2024: The second cohort of participants was recruited from July – October, 2024. Current members were utilized in order to reach out to the next layer of participants, with a number of sign ups coming from referrals and outreach by the WV Department of Education and WV Department of Agriculture.
Learning and Evaluation: The second cohort of 40 service providers will take part in bi-weekly virtual classes focused on Farm to School concepts. These classes will provide guidance for service providers who are working with farmers and school personnel in their communities to implement Farm to School programs. Service providers will provide feedback on the virtual classes related to both knowledge gain and implementation plans.
Status: Completed 6/30/2025
Accomplishments:
2025: The second cohort began in October 2024 and wrapped up in June 2025 with bi-weekly virtual live taught modules and completed their projects. There were 28 participants.
Learning and Evaluation: The second cohort of 40 service providers execute learning labs with their communities to implement Farm to School practices with farmers, educators, youth, and nonprofit partners. These learning labs are designed to step the service provider through everything from recruiting farmers to sell to local school systems to assisting farmers with developing classroom relationships for visits and hands-on activities. Service providers will self-evaluate their efforts during this implementation process.
Status: Completed 7/31/2025
Accomplishments: During the 2025 cohort, 18 participants completed learning labs resulting in 10 separate projects (many doubled up or combined efforts on the same site for their projects). Other participants who did not complete learning labs were involved in Farm to School activities in their community in other ways- which is an important unintended consequence of this program.
Learning: The 80 service provider participants will become part of a learning exchange network which meets in person 4 times per year after year 1- resulting in 8 total network meetings during this project period. At these networking events, service providers will be able to build relationships with one another, learn from each another, and receive targeted technical assistance related to Farm to School activities.
Status: Completed 11/7/2025
Accomplishments:
2022: Working with partners at the WV Food and Farm Coalition, WVU Extension, and High Rocks Educational Corporation, planning is underway for the first network meeting to be held in Spring 2023.
2023: Because of system capacity, this milestone has been adjusted. The first meeting will occur April 20, 2024 at Future Generations University in Franklin, WV.
2024: During the 2024 year, meetings were held:
2/23/24 Charleston, WV (In conjunction with WV Small Farms Conference)
4/20/24 Franklin, WV
11/9/24 Romney, WV
2025: During the 2025 year, meetings were held:
1/18/25: Institute, WV in Partnership w/WV State University
3/1/25: Charleston, WV (In conjunction with WV Small Farms Conference)
5/17/25: Franklin, WV
11/7/25: Morgantown, WV
This peer-learning network has morphed into a larger state wide network of roughly 120 individuals, rebuilding the start of the farm to school system in West Virginia.
Learning and Evaluation: Of the 80 total service provider participants, 60 will secure relationships with farmers and educators, build a team, and work to advance Farm to School activities within their local communities during their cohort year. These will most likely consist of activities like 1-2 local procurements from farmers, a raised bed, meet the farmer events, or other simple interventions.
Status:Completed 7/31/2025
Accomplishments: 2024: During the 2024 Cohort, all participants (36) secured relationships with local farmers (and farmers other than themselves, for the farmers participating) to build towards farm to school activities. Some of these activities included a one-time sale of watermelon into multiple counties, farm tours for classes, and hosting outreach events such as tea parties on farm.
2025: All participants in the second cohort (28) were also working directly with farmers (or were farmers themselves working with other farmers) to build out programming similarly to the first cohort. Some examples include: a coordinator for the WV Department of Agriculture worked with 10 area farms during a farm crawl event to ensure that they also had youth activities on the one-day event; in Fayette County, the WVU extension participant worked with her child nutrition director to ensure that produce used in tastings was from a local farm cooperative which supports 15-20 area farmers in any given month; and a retired professor in the Eastern Panhandle area invited youth to his local farmers market for instruction and to meet all of the farmers in the community.
Milestone activities and participation summary
Educational activities and events conducted by the project team:
Participants in the project’s educational activities:
Learning Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes
Performance Target Outcomes - Service Providers
Target #1
60
Sixty agricultural service providers will implement Sprout School programming in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland with teams of farmers, educators, and community volunteers. Each team will have one farmer, for a total of 60 engaged farmers.
60
57
63
- 7 Curricula, factsheets and other educational tools
- 63 Consultations
- 7 On-farm demonstrations
- 7 Study circles/focus groups
- 7 Tours
- 4 Webinars/talks/presentations
- 2 Presentations at conferences with farmers present by service providers and program participants
2022: Year one’s primary objective was to set up for the classes and coaching of service providers- in year two it is expected that each service provider will form a relationship with at least one farmer and will have regular evaluation check ins related to their success in implementing Farm to School objectives.
2023: During year 2, staff capacity and turnover greatly limited progress on this project- a youth education associate was brought on board to the team in September to focus solely on this work. So far, 3 service providers have been working with 3 farmers to develop outreach activities with youth at 5 local schools through Maple in the Classroom curriculum.
2024: Cohort 1 began in February of this year, and the first trial was amazing. Just the act of bringing together participants every other week resulted in really great connections and creative projects. Program participants were invited to complete a survey at the end of each "unit" or main focus area of Sprout School (Community Development, School Garden Creation and Management, Building the System) seeking input, and they also completed the learning labs during their project implementation phase, as an indicator of work moving forward.
2025: Cohort 2 began in October 2024 and completed in June 2025. Similar verification tools were present during this cohort, but the previous cohort requested to be able to come back and join in networking sessions, which was of course welcomed. This group really showed the change from "overwhelmed by the big picture thoughts of Farm to School" to "maybe I can do one or two things to just get started in my community" that the university team was expecting. Additionally, this cohort also showed that even if the project isn't completed, just by having conversations about how to be involved results in folks being engaged in their farm to school communities.
Performance Target Outcomes - Farmers
Target #1
50
Coaching from service providers will result in 50 farmers reporting one institutional market relationship resulting in sales.
42
Additional Project Outcomes
2025: The relationship with the WV Department of Education and WV Department of Agriculture has been a welcome surprise in how involved they are together in ensuring that Farm to School work moves forward as a state. A bucket of work has been identified and funding streams so that the work can continue and can actually build capacity instead of being several one-off projects scattered throughout the state. This is continuing into a formalized support network (the WV Farm to School Alliance/Working Group) that is supported by the Benedum Foundation, the WV Department of Agriculture, and the WV Department of Education as well as a quarterly meeting and training opportunity for program participants and others interested in youth agriculture and/or Farm to School work. Opening this network up to beyond program participants resulted in several farmers joining who are now working with their child nutrition directors on building more systems.
Through this work, the next layer has been identified to increase capacity in the system surrounding school garden safety so that produce can be purchased by school systems, best practices with procurement, and increasing training for farmers who are selling into school systems as well as the nutrition staff who are interfacing with those farmers.
An NRCS service provider attended a training for Maple in the Classroom curriculum and has been working with a local maple syrup producer to implement educational programming at Ruthlawn Elementary in Kanawha County, West Virginia. The farmer attended a “Meet the farmer” event last fall and conducted a taste testing of syrup with 3rd-5th grade students. This spring, the same producer is going to tap with the students on site and provide support for the NRCS service provider and educators as they go through the curriculum.
During the first cohort (2024) year of Sprout School, one of the participants was an education and outreach staff member from Snowville Creamery, a small-scale corporate dairy which sells into several school systems in Ohio and West Virginia. She developed a movement and nutrition curriculum which aligns with the products children find in their school meals (milk, yogurt, ice milk), and aligned it with both WV and OH standards of learning. Several counties in WV have adopted Mooga, as it is named, as approved for Prek-5 curriculum.
The second cohort (2025) saw the beginnings of a localized farm to school and youth ag education network being formed in Morgan County, West Virginia. A first year participant who completed her project as a WVU extension staff member had reached out to the master gardeners in her community for volunteer assistance. Three of those volunteers were so excited from their experience with her that they joined the second cohort and completed their own projects within Morgan County with the community.
During the second cohort (2025), a WVU Health educator in Fayette County, WV found the need to begin to pull together resources that integrate Harvest of the Month curriculum she utilized with the school gardens and the local child nutrition office. This resource was meant to outlive her lifetime at the position, and to be utilized to train future volunteers. The reality was that with the federal funding cuts, her position disappeared resulting in this guide being put into practice much sooner than anticipated.
Other successes can be found in the toolkit case studies attached as a product. Additionally, simple guides that were created as part of this program have all been attached as guides as well (they may not have the NESARE branding on them because they were created by program participants.).
Two separate communities that participated in year 1 and year 2 of Sprout School (Big Ugly Community Center in Lincoln County and Keep Your Faith Corporation on the West Side of Charleston) took what they learned from both years and combined efforts to submit a full USDA Farm to School proposal in 2025 which would start a mentor program for young farmers with older farmers from their communities and build cross-site connections and aggregation options into the associated school systems.
The virtual twice monthly learning environment really worked for entry-level participants who were needing something to help them stay grounded and not be overwhelmed by the entire Farm to School framework. These touchpoints were seen again and again as important ways for participants to interact with each other and Future Generations University staff. Although only on average 8-10 participants attended each session, the recordings were watched by those that missed. This flexibility was key to getting folks excited, providing some structure, but also making sure that something happened in the communities. If they structure had been more rigid or attendance required, the number of participants and resulting projects would have dropped significantly.
In the third cohort (funded by foundations in the area), Future Generations University plans to have a few example projects complete with budgets for participants who are just getting started and overwhelmed by the choice of what they could do. The idea of "just getting started" was mentioned again and again in all evaluations and shows up several times in the toolkit by case study participants.