The Willow School Garden
The Willow School garden provides food for our lunch program and opportunities for classroom teaching, and a source of fresh produce for our local soup kitchen. In support of the school’s commitment to health and wellness, joy of learning, sustainability and service learning; the garden is a bountiful place for many of these activities.
As part of the integrated curriculum, plots are assigned to classrooms and students explore a variety of subject matters. Some garden projects include: using math skills to determine the needed planting space to grow a certain crop, planting seeds and starting their plants indoors and then transplanting them into the garden, learning and growing the native vegetable crops the Lenape Indians grew. Parent volunteers assist in the planting, upkeep and harvest of the garden. The garden is maintained with many sustainable and organic practices such as; composting, mulching with cardboard and crop rotation. At the end of the fall season our entire community participates in the many preparations for our annual Harvest Soup Day. Harvest Soup Day is a beloved Willow School tradition where we gather in thanks and enjoy community and the garden harvest together.
Our kitchen staff maintains a plot in the garden, supplementing our lunch program with fresh vegetables and herbs grown on campus. Students enjoy seeing and eating The Willow School vegetables offered during lunch. Most recently, we have expanded our partnership with the Morristown Soup Kitchen to include the donation of fresh produce from our school garden.
Lunch Menu
With a commitment to a progressive food policy, The Willow School offers students and faculty a daily lunch program featuring foods that are fresh, whole, local, seasonal and organic. Foods served at The Willow School are free of all nuts and nut oils, artificial colors or additives, artificial sweeteners, preservatives, partially hydrogenated oils, genetically modified foods, high fructose corn syrup, caffeine, MSG or sodium nitrate. We offer whole grains, pastas, breads and organic proteins and vegetarian proteins whenever feasible.
Food is served buffet style in our large Studio space where students and faculty share their meals together. Each meal consists of a main entre and side dishes of vegetables and fruit. Tasting Tuesdays offers a chance for our students to try foods and ingredients that may be new to them. We encourage students to try a tasting portion of these foods. It is our hope that the students will slowly expand their palates and be open to a large variety of foods, thus increasing their general nutrition. Table tents are provided on each table with nutritional and interesting facts about the food.
Students participate in the operation of the lunch program. They are assigned jobs that instill assisting responsibilities in the smooth flow of each lunch session. Each student is asked to clear their plate, compost, dispose of their waste and load the dishes to the dish racks. Consistent with our commitment to sustainable practices, we have opted for the use of washable plates and utensils. Napkins are made with high recycled content. Instead of using paper towels to wash and dry the lunch tables, you will find us using cotton hand towels.