Canfield Ave. and Community Magnet Elementary Schools

Every Friday at two Los Angeles public schools, you can see children trying pluots or sweet peas or red peppers or Thompson raisins or many more kinds of produce -- some tentatively taking a bite, some with enthusiasm, often with pleasure. Welcome to Fruit on Fridays, a partnership between Canfield Elementary School and the Community Magnet School and the La Cienega Farmers Market. It provides a farmers market snack, often organic, for nearly 1,000 children, along with a brief lesson about the farmer, the growing season or the food they are eating.

Fruit on Fridays is in its fourth year at Community Magnet, funded three of those years by parent contributions. Last year, the program at Community and Canfield was funded by a Buy California grant, meant to help the farmers as much as the children. The program is currently seeking funding to pay for some of the 2004 program, and to expand it to a third school, Crescent Heights Elementary School. All three schools are Los Angeles public schools, with diverse student populations in kindergarten through grade 5.

Food is purchased each Thursday at the La Cienega market and brought to the school the next day. Volunteer parents do any necessary preparation (washing, cutting, etc.) and distribute the food, at recess at Community and after school at Canfield -- replacing the chips and other processed, high fat snacks often brought to or sold at schools. For more information, please contact the La Cienega Farmers' Market manager, Cynthia Ojeda.