Berry Good connection with schools

Berry Good Food Foundation supports a local and regenera­tive food system in San Diego and Baja California with pro­grams around food security and food education by building bridges between farmers, chefs, scientists, and citizens to chal­lenge the industrial food sys­tem while advocating access to healthy food for all.

BGF Foundation Cultivator Christina Ng said BFG is com­ing into its eight years of op­eration as a nonprofit serving San Diego County and northern parts of Baja Mexico. She said its primary program is its Seeds for the Future School Garden Program.

“That is where Pride Acad­emy [El Cajon] came in,” she said. “They were a recipient of our 2023 iteration of our Seeds of the Future School Garden grant. It is an annual grant we put up for the last seven years. The grant is open to all San Di­ego County schools or organi­zations who are looking to es­tablish, refurbish, or enhance school garden programs at their school. What makes us special is that beyond the school gar­den education piece, is that we have a very robust network in the chef community. We often bring in programming not only just to grow food, but grow food, harvest food, then learn how to cook that food with scratch recipes.”

Ng said this is one of its “unique superpowers” as a non­profit, to take healthy whole foods and take them through the entire cycle from growth to eating.

“Our secondary program is an educational media piece Fu­ture Thought Leaders panels, produced in conjunction with University of California tele­vision channel UCTV, and we have 12 episodes/panels,” she said. “These panels are led by our founder Michelle Ciccarel­li Lerach. She is the modera­tor of a conversation over any topic about food. In the last 12 episodes we have talked about topics such as mushrooms used medicinally and culinarily, sus­tainable seafood, soil health and how that affects our agricultural systems. And our most popular Future Thought Leaders panel is called ‘Let Food Be Thy Medi­cine” and on the UCTV platform and our YouTube channel, it has more than 15 million views and counting. We are very proud of that production, and we will be putting on two more of those panels this year. One in Baja California in June, and one in November here in San Diego.”

Ng said these two panels will be added to a metric of panels will be part of the World Design Convention, which is in San Di­ego and Tijuana this year and will be officially part of Word Design Convention calendar this year.

“Those are the passion proj­ects of our founder, but they really serve as an introductory session. Before podcasts became extremely popular, these were like that. A coffee table styled podcast in nature. Very conver­sational. Surface level infor­mation-wise. You do not need to be a PhD to understand the content.”

Ng said they are proud of both programs, but for the most part, the ones that stand out the most are its school gardens and culi­nary education programs.

“Our overall mission is to help everybody in our county and in our communities to gain health food access and food sovereignty and we go by the tagline, ‘Grow­ing a Food Movement,’” she said. “It could be big. It could be small. As long as our citizens in our communities are stakehold­ers are actively growing their food, their awareness of the food they are consuming, we feel like we have done our job.”

Ng said for interested schools, grants open in September and October, usually choosing some­one by December and announc­ing winners by Dec. 1. She said traditionally, it has been eight to 12 recipients every year.

“Starting that following year in January, we get in discussion about building out a garden, or refurbishing what they might already have, and scheduling out supplementary classes such as Basic Gardening Technique, culinary classes, and we will work through until school ends in June,” she said. “Most pro­grams and grants are typically on a one-year cycle, but we like to keep an open conversation with our grant award winners. I like to think that every year we are growing our family. If you were outside of the grant period, we are always open to discussion.”

Ng said a good example of this is she was able to make contacts withing the Grossmont Union High School District, that has career technical education with one that has a culinary focus.

“In the last year, connecting with Granite Hills High School, Idea Center High School, El Ca­jon Valley High School, all three have a culinary program as a career pathway to students. Those schools did not apply traditionally through the grant cycle. However, we got hold of each other and we are doing a garden at Idea Center. We have held multiple foodie field trips at Granite Hills. So, there are two examples of those who did not go the traditional grant cycle, but we were able supply with resources.”

To learn more about BFG, shop it store, its panels, grants, classes, donations, and events, visit www.berrygoodfood.org.