When the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy reached out to me about their Farm to School initiative, I was very interested in collaborating with them on a piece that would create a vibrant and simple way to understand their excellent program. 

Farm to Early Care initiatives connect young children with healthy, locally-grown foods and support farmers in their communities.

IATP wanted a way for the program to be understood as a cyclical process—easy enough for any school or early education program to implement.

The poster or visual component was to simplify the steps throughout the year to get a general and visual overview of how all the pieces come together. 

There were three core goals for the programs:

• Offer food and farming-related educational activities for children
• Serve locally grown foods with schools and early care meals and snacks
• Organize food and farming-related family engagement activities

These are all with the idea in mind that the program brings together local farmers, families and communities, all while creating happy and healthy children. I worked closely with the staff at IATP to simplify and understand and dissect the process as well as determine the best visuals to represent each category. The goal was to create an attractive poster that was general enough for any school or early care facility to pick up and be able to visualize integrating into their own program. 

They revealed the poster at the 9th Annual National Farm to Cafeteria Conference. The piece lives on their site as a companion guide and downloadable poster.  iatp.org/farm-to-early-care