Harvest Soup Lunch is a fall celebration of student effort in their garden lessons and their work in planting and caring for the gardens.  Students are rewarded with vegetable soup prepared and served in the school cafeteria. 

Carolyn Morgan, the head cook at the primary and elementary schools, and her staff go out of their way to prepare and serve fresh produce from the gardens.  Carol Marples, the district's director of food service, is a great advocate for serving tasty and nutritious lunches. 

It is a challenge to get the produce from the gardens and into the cafeteria in a form they can use and in a timely fashion.  Though the cafeteria staff is very willing to work with us, they are understaffed and faced with the responsibility of preparing lunch each day for more than 1,000 students.  We routinely harvest and deliver easy to prepare produce like cucumbers, peppers and tomatoes, and each year we have a special day where the focus is on produce from the gardens.

Harvest Soup Lunch is a sharing of the bounty of the different gardens.  Imagine all three school cafeterias with colorful tablecloths and floral bouquets on the tables.  That’s the scene we set on Harvest Soup Day.  The whole thing is accompanied by a slide show of photos of students in the gardens throughout the years. The soup is free of charge to all students, staff and guests.