Our new center is coming this fall! Floyd Farms at Leataata
Floyd Elementary will be home to a city-run community garden,
Food Literacy Center’s cooking school and headquarters, and
student gardens managed by our program staff.
Our Current Center
Literacy Center currently operates out of a small portable. Our
program resembles pop-up catering: we bring our food and cooking
supplies to school cafeterias, where we set up temporary cooking
and nutrition classes for elementary students. As a young
nonprofit, we don’t have a “center” where the community can come
to us to cook–yet!
Cooking School & Headquarters
In 2016, the Sacramento City Unified School District
voted unanimously for our nonprofit to
manage a cooking school and student gardens on 2.5 acres
on their Leataata Floyd Elementary campus. The 5,000 square
foot building has been designed by HMC Architects and is
funded by fees specifically designated for this
project by the developer of The Mill at Broadway, which
neighbors the school campus
Our New Center
This state-of-the-art, green facility being built will include
and support:
- Cooking School, where 30+ students will learn to cook healthy
meals.
- Prep Kitchen, where our staff and volunteers will prep food
and cooking supplies for after school programs across the school
district focused on Title 1 schools.
- Training & Office Space, where our staff will train future
instructors of our curriculum, and manage the day-to-day
operations of this 2.5-acre facility that will reach over 1,000
students/week.
- Community Programs, where we will host family cooking
classes, school field trips and more!
Floyd Farms Renderings
Located at the north end of Floyd Farms, directly behind the
cooking school, will be a 1-acre multi-use, outdoor classroom
operated by Food Literacy Center. Our farm is being designed
with one goal in mind: encouraging children to eat their
vegetables. The open space, designed to improve child health, is
for students and families to learn, play, and explore in an urban
lot that was once vacant. This site compliments our existing
cooking and nutrition programs by allowing students to grow food
and engage in active play.
Hands-on Learning
The type of education offered at Floyd Farms also matters.
Children’s learning styles vary. Studies show that students who
practice what they’re learning in a hands-on environment can
often retain three and a half times as much as opposed to just
sitting in a lecture and listening. Students who have difficulty
learning for reasons of ESL barriers, auditory deficiencies, or
behavioral interference can be found to be on task more often
when they are part of the learning process and not just
spectators.
Programs
The new center will allow Food Literacy Center to:
- Serve elementary school students in afterschool programs
throughout SCUSD.
- Serve students at Leataata Floyd Elementary with school day
curriculum in cooking and gardening.
- Expand food literacy programming to reach more schools
throughout the district.
- Provide community and family cooking classes to the public.
- Implement cooking and nutrition classes such as food science,
biology, history, and culture through cuisine
- Provide garden education including plant biology, and
compost.
