This site was established for professionals working on school food and food literacy issues in the western region—defined by the National Farm to School Network as including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington. We hope this site can provide its members with ample opportunities to stay fully informed of the latest developments, share their knowledge and resources, learn from each others' experiences, tackle questions and barriers together, and reduce duplication of efforts.

How to use this site:

• MY PAGE: Introduce yourself to colleagues—upload your picture into your profile, change your profile, and share your thoughts and stories through blog posts.
• MEMBERS: Find out who else is part of this network, "friend" people you want to meet, comment on others' pages, and read others' blog posts.
• GROUPS: Organized by field of work and/or expertise. Like the yellow pages of farm to school professionals with the added ability to hold group discussions. Join a group to meet and network with other members who work in a similar arena. Is your job or area of activity missing from this list? Add a new group.
• FORUMS: Organized by topic. Do you have a question you want help answering; wondering about a current issue; frustrated or excited by an idea? Come here first to see if your question fits within one of the forum's topic areas and post a new entry under the topic (if it does not fit with any of the forums, you can post it as a blog dicussion instead). Want to find out what topics others are discussing and/or contribute to a discussion? Visit FORUMS, read the entries and comments, and add your responses.
• DOCUMENT SHARING: A forum for sharing documents and resources. Do you have resources you believe others may benefit from? Upload them! Are you looking for supportive materials? Visit this forum to access resources including publications, slideshows, PowerPoint presentations, and much more.
• WEBSITES: A forum for learning about and sharing blog and website links relevant to farm to school and food literacy issues. Peruse what's there and add your own.
• MEDIA: View PHOTOS and VIDEOS related to farm to school and food literacy issues. If you'd like access to one of the photos/videos, contact the network member who posted it and inquire about how it may be used and whether s/he will share the original file. If you have material to share for publication on websites, in journals, newsletters, and PowerPoint presentations, or elsewhere, upload the photos and videos.
• BLOGS: Read other members stories, thoughts, and questions, and share your own.
• EVENTS: Broadcast events you are hosting and find out about events others are hosting.
• $$$: Find and/or share GRANT funding, JOB, and SCHOLARSHIP opportunities.
• INVITE: Share this network with colleagues who may benefit from participating, have valuable contributions to make, or simply want to learn more about the farm to school movement in the western states.
• SEARCH: Find out what's on this site. Use the search bar in the upper right corner to discover which members, groups, forums, events, and resources address topics you are interested in.

Poke around, explore the site, have fun, and send us feedback. Good Grub & Gardens is an experiment in collective creation—the network is as strong as all of its members' participation, with no single entity controlling the content. You will get what you put into it, and hopefully more, so jump in!