LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Imagine kids sitting down in the school cafeteria and snacking on some fresh Arkansas-grown strawberries with their lunch.
Well, a new website is trying to make that imagination a reality.
The Arkansas Department of Agriculture launched a multi-platform website with a goal is to connect local farmers to schools.
At Forest Park Elementary's Outdoor Learning Center they've been teaching kids over the past several years through hands-on and nutrition-based education.
Garden Coordinator Kristin Taylor said now they're about to start elevating that by using local home-grown Arkansas produce.
"I feel like this is another opportunity that we can just build on, increase, improve the experience that the kids are getting," she said.
Inside Forest Park Elementary's Roots Garden, kids can get their hands dirty and try new things.
Learning in a way that can't be found within school hallways, Taylor said.
"If they're not book-kids, they're not sit-at-a-desk kind of kids, it gives them really a place to flourish, a place to find their own kind of niche," she said.
A niche that, according to Taylor, can now be taken to a whole other level thanks to a new multi-platform website by the Arkansas Department of Agriculture.
"This is going to allow us to perhaps put a little bit of what we grow out here and combine it with a local farm and give that to the kids," she said.
Sarah Lane, the Farm to School and Early Childhood Education Programmer for the Department of Agriculture, said the website allows farmers to easily find contact information for schools that buy local food while districts can do the same finding local farmers.
"The pandemic has really shown us how fragile our local food system can be, so this new website bridges that gap," she said.
According to Lane, the goal is to see more local food in schools, whether that's at the lunch table or in a garden.
"It's supporting local business, it's helping kids eat healthy food, it's really connecting our whole community together," she said.
A connection that has never been more important.
"With everything's that happened over the past years, we just think that this website will be a way to better support our farmers and our schools, who want to engage in farm to school activities," Lane said.
The website already has over 300 school gardens and over 800 farmers and distributors listed.