This fun and free community event will be for preschoolers and their families to learn about healthy eating and understand where our food comes from.  The event will feature hands-on activities, including a hay wagon ride to a 1 acre U-Pick vegetable garden, where participants can pick their own fresh vegetables. The festival expects to have approximately 700 participants. In the case that an in person event is not available, we will distribute "Festival in a Bag" kits to preschool locations. 

The event goals are multi-level and include:

• influencing the eating habits for young children while their preferences are forming;

• creating healthy lifestyles through dissemination of good nutrition information;

• experiential opportunities such as gardening, produce harvesting, family food preparation and taste testing.

The Farm-to-Preschool Festival is based on Grow It, Try It, Like It!  This is a USDA garden-themed curriculum featuring hands-on activities, planting activities and nutrition education activities that introduce MyPlate. The guided use of this curriculum as a theme for the Festival ensures the age-appropriateness of the activities.  The festival will provide information and activities to promote home fun with parents and preschoolers related to where food comes from, food tasting and home gardening. The festival will also include a 1-acre U-pick vegetable garden for families attending the event.  This is an opportunity to increase children’s food literacy and encouraging parents to increase their children’s vegetable intake. There will be a variety of interactions and resources for families of young children through both hands-on and observation of activities and curriculum for agriculture, including nutrition education.

The Farm-to-Preschool Festival will include the resources of Farm Smart, the University of California CalFresh Healthy Living Program as well as established partners that include Imperial County 4-H, local grocers, farms, growers and a host of trained volunteers.

The project will be located at the University of California Desert Research and Extension Center (UC DREC) in Holtville, CA. It is the mission of UC DREC to conduct innovative and relevant agricultural, natural resources, and environmental research and education programs in arid regions.  Farm Smart is the educational outreach program for UC DREC designed to teach students of all ages about natural resources and renewable natural resources, including agriculture so they can be conserved, managed and available for future generations.  Farm Smart is widely recognized for its K-12th grade field trip programs, camps, and community events in Imperial County.  Over 160,000 people have been reached through on-center visits and programs as well as off-site school visits since the program began in 2001.  Every year, thousands of Imperial County youth and educators come to DREC to learn about agriculture, water and irrigation, natural resources, nutrition and scientific research through hands-on interactive exploration of agriculture and natural resources in daily living.  With agriculture connected to nearly everything in our daily lives, there is a need for individuals to understand the value of agriculture.  The promotion of agriculture literacy will give learners of all ages a better understanding of where their food and fiber comes from.  Increased awareness of agriculture and our natural resources allows individuals to make informed choices about nutrition, policies around agriculture, career opportunities within the agriculture industry, as well as how we can conserve, manage and ensure our natural resources are available for future generations.