Our produce is used for student snacks and cooking in garden and kitchen classes. We use it for cooking demonstrations and special events. Food is also sent home with students and staff through weekly Harvest Tables.
Langston Hughes Academy has goats, chickens, and a pig. Samuel J. Green Charter School will soon have chickens.
Edible Schoolyard New Orleans is a program of FirstLine Schools, and only operates at FirstLine. Our schools are public, tuition-free schools that are open to all who live in Orleans Parish. To enroll, visit the New Orleans Public School OneApp enrollment portal.
No. At FirstLine Schools, we serve over 10,000 student meals per day. Our gardens are created to be living laboratories with diverse plantings of vegetables, herbs, flowers, native plants, and fruit trees. We do not grow any single food in the amount needed for school meals. However, ESYNOLA does help on the FirstLine Schools cafeteria management team, which supports and manages our food service provider in serving delicious, nutritious meals.
We offer tours for small groups, but due to a full class schedule we cannot accommodate field trips or large groups of young students. Contact our Operations Manager to schedule a tour or class observation.
Most of our events are only for FirstLine students and families, but some are open to anyone. You can help out with garden projects at one of our Open Garden Days, posted on our Group Service page. Two public events for families are Sweet Potato Fest at Arthur Ashe Charter School in the fall, and you can eat at Restaurant Green, a kid-powered public restaurant, at Samuel J. Green Charter School in the spring. Connect with us on social media for updates!
As a signature program of FirstLine Schools, our mission is to serve our Pre-K through 8th grade schools. While we are unable to provide formal consulting, you are welcome to adapt our online public resources, which are forthcoming on this site in fall 2019. We also share best practices with the Edible Schoolyard Project, National Farm to School Network, and the Louisiana Farm to School Alliance.
Some of our favorite lessons and recipes can be found on our garden and culinary education page.
ESYNOLA’s budget is about $1.2 million across four schools. Private and public grants, individual donors, and our annual fundraiser, An Edible Evening, help us provide garden and culinary classes and special events.
Site Acknowledgements
The watercolor illustrations throughout this website are by Nicole Gelb Dugat.
Special thanks to Heather Muntzer for the hands illustrations on the home page, and to photographers Sean Ambrose and Donnie Bishop, who have donated their time, talent, and the use of their photographs.
This site was built by C4 Tech & Design.
