Big Bear, CA, December 11, 2015 – Students at Big Bear Middle School are bringing sustainability to the community with their teacher Tracy Tokunaga. One of the projects they are working on this year is Project Localize where they are learning what makes a food system sustainable, and sharing sustainable solutions with the community through artwork that they will be creating this spring. Tokunaga says the students have accomplished quite a bit so far with the Big Bear Farm2Mountain Produce Club. The students run a farmer’s market out of the classroom every week on Tuesday. They work with the Big Bear Valley Community Gardens Project and with JF Organic Farm, which is less than 75 miles from Big Bear.
The Community Gardens Project donates produce to sell at the farmer’s market and customers of the Produce Club are able to order organic produce online through their website. Every Tuesday, the students unload the produce, check orders, assemble boxes, and run the cash register. The money they make from this program supplies the school salad bar with organic produce every week. The Community Gardens Project will work with Big Bear Middle School students in the spring to plant their own garden plot. The food they harvest will then supplement their Tuesday farmer’s market.
Students also ‘juice’ every Friday, making organic fruit smoothies on their newly engineered blender bikes!
