Hands-on, five-senses scholarship of place, palate, planet, people
At first glance, the Garden State on Your Plate program is palate education, bringing chefs and local farmers into public school cafeterias at lunchtime to serve samples of simply prepared, seasonal and fresh produce to all students of the school – and to demonstrate career paths.
But that just scratches the surface. This farm-to-school program, introduced in 2010, is foundational and a prerequisite to all other programs and priorities. Garden State on Your Plate uses the cafeteria to, equitably and deliciously, connect subject to subject, while linking students to their own bodies, to each other, to their communities, and to the world around them.
The Garden State on Your Plate program is the underpinning of all food systems literacy efforts at Princeton Public Schools.
The program uses as its primary tool a seasonal produce item – nuts, seeds, fruits, vegetables, berries, legumes, beans, grains – for each month of the school year, offering curricular, cultural, and newsworthy connections to faculty, administrators, and parents. These NJ-grown produce items are among those that school-age children aren’t consuming in sufficient quantities, according to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans.
In some cases, the program changes minds. In this video, Sharon Goldman, former principal at Community Park Elementary School, discusses her experience with beets.
Outdoors, on campus lands in the surrounding community, and in partnership with the district’s facilities and land stewardship departments, spans the study of interacting natural systems required for all life.
Edible Campus educators – some specializing in garden crops, and at some point in the future, food forest crops – at each of the district’s six campuses coordinate the planting, tending and harvesting of the items through the growing season, working alongside faculty members who bring students outside, onto campus lands, for relevant research and for respite.
Indoors, informational posters featuring the produce item are displayed for the month in the halls and in the cafeterias and in the libraries of each of the district’s six schools. An online collection of curriculum- and demographically connected recipes from Pomptonian, the current food service company for PPS, and from around the world, also is available.
In partnership with the district’s food service company and with PPS faculty, each of the district’s cafeterias spotlights the produce item on the lunch line once a week. On another day of the same week, the cafeteria hot line features the produce item as a recipe component celebrating global cuisines, including Pan-Asian, Latino-Hispanic, Indian/Middle Eastern, and Black Diaspora. These foods make direct links to:
• curriculum, including and especially the NJ Climate Change Education mandate;
• global cultures and cuisines ;
• the PPS Teaching Kitchens;
• the origins of the food, the cuisine, and its pathways to the Garden State;
• current events; and,
• campus lands, each school’s Edible Gardens, and the New Jersey food shed.
The program created for and in partnership with Princeton Public Schools aims to build community of the table, increase quality of the school food offerings, and increase participation in the National School Lunch Program and School Breakfast Program by everyday incorporation of these produce items – beyond their month in the spotlight.
GARDEN STATE ON YOUR PLATE 2025-26
| September – Peppers; Tree Fruit (Hispanic Heritage 9/15–10/15) | February – Collard Greens; Crushed Tomatoes, Apples (Black History Month; Chinese New Year 2/17-3/3) |
| October – Beets, Apples, Lettuces (Diwali Festival of Lights 10/20) | March – Asian Pear (Nowruz 3/20) |
| November – Cranberries (Native American Heritage November; Thanksgiving 11/27) | April – Kale; Frozen Blueberries (Arab Heritage Month) |
| December – Sweet Potato (Christmas 12/25; Hanukah 12/14-12/22; Kwanzaa 12/26-1/1) | May – Bok Choy; Strawberries(Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month) |
| January – Winter Squash; Frozen Blackberries (New Year’s Day & Mexican Independence Day 1/1; MLK Day 1/19) | June – Asparagus (Caribbean American History Month) |