San Joaquin Valley Report

During the last quarter of 2001, the San Joaquin Valley region made good progress on the Atwater Farm-to-School project, began work on the new CalFed Bay-Delta Watershed Stewardship Project for the Merced River and hosted two events ‹ the annual Chip Off and Small Farm Celebration.

During 2001, we made a solid start with the formation of a Farm-to-School Team at Bellevue Elementary School in Atwater, Merced County. Team members include CAFF staff, Bellevue's Healthy Start coordinator, Atwater School District's food service director, Atwater schools' parent volunteer coordinator, a high school 4-H garden volunteer, a teacher, Merced County 4-H members and several parent volunteers.

A local high school student and 4-H member, Elise Chad, volunteered to lead the effort to start a school garden and begin an after-school garden club. A garden site was selected and funding and donations are being sought to fence the area, purchase gardening materials and install two worktables. The Atwater School District food service director volunteered to visit classrooms with produce from the garden and discuss the variety of vegetables and how to prepare them.

Plans are in the works to implement the Merced River portion of CAFF's new CalFed Bay-Delta Watershed Stewardship Project. There are several large projects taking place on the Merced River and this provided an opportunity for CAFF to network with the agencies and organizations to determine the best use of our time and energy. What emerged was the need to work on issues of sedimentation into Dry Creek, the only tributary of the Merced River.

The first phase of the project is to form a management team composed of members with diverse interests and background on the river. The management team will begin by examining educational outreach methods for landowners.

Anyone interested in participating in CAFF's work in the San Joaquin Valley should contact San Joaquin Valley regional coordinator Gwen Huff at (559) 268-2696 or gwen@caff.org.