Vida Verde teaches Bay Area kids where their food comes from

Vida Verde is a nature education center on Tunitas Creek Road, south of Half Moon Bay. In October, I’d linked to a story about Harley Farms that featured Vida Verde.  Last week, the Chron ran a nice profile of their program.

Teaching kids they have choices about food is at the heart of Vida Verde. Five years ago, founders Shawn Sears and Laura Dickerson were teaching poor kids in rural Mississippi. "There’s a huge disconnect about where your food comes from," says Dickerson, who grew up in Kentucky. She says she never even heard the word "organic" until she turned 18. "I just love to see kids’ surprise when they find out where food comes from—that milk actually comes out of an animal."

After struggling for a couple of years with the challenges of teachers in poor schools, Sears and Dickerson met Jim Sheehan and Nancy Schaub. Social justice advocates from Spokane, Wash., Sheehan and Schaub purchased this farm south of Half Moon Bay, a former llama ranch, in the early ‘90s, and had been seeking the right people to establish an environmental education center.

After seeing "Supersize Me" last night, this really hit home.