Creating Bite-Sized Curricula for Oxnard

Vanessa Zajfen has big plans for breakfast and lunch at Ocean View Elementary School District in Oxnard. A well-seasoned local food “forager,” she’s centering some of Ventura County’s small local farms as part of a new mealtime curriculum.

“We wanted to bridge the cafeteria and classroom, outside the scope of traditional food service,” says Zajfen. Not only is she innovating new educational programs that focus on where our food grows and who’s growing it, but she’s collaborating with Edible Ojai & Ventura County to make it happen.

As of now, Zajfen is envisioning one program with three parts: farmer trading cards; an Edible-branded education booklet (mini magazine) for students, including a recipe for the month that notes where you can find locally grown ingredients in our county; and partnerships with local farmers’ markets. “We will feature local farmers through entrées and salads,” Zajfen explains, “with supplemental info for the students and teachers.”

Zajfen hopes to turn the farmer trading cards into posters that could hang in cafeterias. “We’ve received some funding from the California Department of Food and Agriculture’s Office of Farm to Fork, but we are seeking additional funding to allow for redemption of the farmer trading cards at area farmers’ markets,” she says, adding that she’s partnering with Edible Ojai & Ventura County to design and print materials.

“This will all run through our breakfast-in-the-classroom program, where we hope to provide farm-to-school placemats from which students will eat and original video content to play during breakfast service in the classroom.” But that, like most nonprofit projects, will come down to funding.

A sustainable agriculture advocate at heart, “I was always acutely aware of where and how food was being produced,” Zajfen says. Ocean View made the transition from “heat and serve” long before Zajfen arrived, and had already eliminated Styrofoam and single-use plastics. “My predecessor helped with culinary arts training that allowed the kitchen to cook from scratch,” she says. The groundwork Ocean View already had in place allowed her to expand local and organic food sourcing.

Much of it is a numbers game. Zajfen reviews overall food costs and tries to find new approaches to the budget that allow the district to buy better-quality, locally sourced ingredients. Balancing food costs across the menu and utilizing some USDA foods helps Ocean View afford to buy products like local burger meat from Watkins Ranch, for example.

Zajfen finds flexible ways to build in these ingredients, such as buying imperfect produce that local farmers might not be able to sell otherwise but is still delicious and full of the nutrition kids need. Smart sourcing helps both local agriculture and her budget. “I can accept green oranges that have not been gassed and serve them because we can slice them,” says Zajfen. “It takes thinking outside the box.”