Past Projects

In collaboration with Region One Education Service Center, IESH facilitates mutually beneficial partnerships between producers and school nutrition programs to increase locally grown foods served in cafeterias.

When Triple J Organics expressed an interest in supplying their products to local schools, IESH not only connected them to Mission Consolidated Independent School District (CISD), they developed Verdant Exchange, a produce brokering service designed for locally and sustainably grown food. This work created a new market for Triple J and allowed Mission CISD to procure locally grown citrus for their cafeteria. Additionally, Verdant Exchange now supports the development of more aligned partnerships between producers, schools, and other entities.

IESH developed and implemented a standardized model for building small, diversified fruit and vegetable farms at school campuses. This has given students the opportunity to immerse themselves in a working farm, learn sustainable growing practices, incorporate healthy foods into their diets, and contribute to their local food system. This model has since been scaled to multiple schools across the region.

IESH served as the administrator for a Capacity Building Grant program. Awards of $10,000 were distributed to various farms and community-based organizations, with the intent of increasing their production and capacity to feed their local communities.

In partnership with the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, IESH co-founded and co-leads the Food Systems Working Group. Made up of educators, community champions, and food systems professionals the group is reimagining a more resilient local food system in the Rio Grande Valley. They are assessing gaps and opportunities within the regional supply chain and catalyzing scalable, community-driven solutions.

IESH worked with students and leadership at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) to establish a local food purchasing policy for their student dining hall. This policy requires UTRGV to increase their local food purchases year over year, establishing a new market for local producers and increasing the amount of healthy, locally grown food in student meals.

IESH organized a half-day summit at Region One Education Service Center to bring together leading farm-to-school advocates and school leaders. Participants  shared best practices on starting, funding, and operating successful farm-to-school programs.

IESH developed a farm to school program for Mission Consolidated Independent School District and designed an evaluation process to assess the impact of farm education on students’ socio-emotional well-being.

IESH and the leadership at Region One Education Service Center in Texas designed a food purchasing policy that paves the way for small, local growers to be more competitive when selling to local schools. In addition, a cooperative purchasing model impacting over 500,000 students was established to increase the long-term impact of the purchasing policy.

IESH developed STEM-focused and TEKS-aligned curriculum for students to learn about the design, building process, and management of a commercial hydroponic farming system.