Chicago Cub's Education Day:
Great Apple Crunch and Stade's Farm!
Thank you for joining us for the Chicago Cub’s Education Day: The Great Apple Crunch with Stade’s Farm! To learn more about the work of Seven Generations Ahead with schools, early childcare education centers, crunching apples, composting food scraps, and more, please check out a few of our programs linked below:
Illinois Farm to School Network
The Illinois Farm to School Network is comprised of teachers, early care providers, food service staff, farmers, and many others who are working to change food purchasing and education practices in their communities.
Our network provides training, connects partners, and shares resources about all aspects of farm to school — local food sourcing, food & nutrition education, and on-site gardening.
Our free programs provide feeding, garden and education sites with a platform on which they can share local and garden foods, food education and celebration of healthy, local food.
Great Apple Crunch
Registration Is Now Open for The Great Apple Crunch 2024.
The Great Apple Crunch is an annual celebration of fresh, local apples on the second Thursday of October, during National Farm to School Month. The Illinois Crunch is part of the Midwest Great Apple Crunch, which is also celebrated in the neighboring states of Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Schools, early child care facilities, and other child education programs across Illinois can participate by serving local apples on the lunch tray or in the classroom, and ‘crunch’-ing into them together all at the same time. The Illinois Farm to School Network helps participants locate local orchards and provides promotional tools and educational supplements that teach students all about Illinois apples.
Check out and share our Midwest Great Apple Crunch information.
Illinois Harvest of the Month
Illinois Harvest of the Month celebrates multiple in-season, locally grown food items every month. Our calendar features foods produced during each Illinois growing season. You choose which local foods you wish to celebrate based upon availability and the right fit for your site or program. Choose what works best for your meal, education, or garden program!
The program is free to all Illinois child feeding, garden and education sites! Access 38 local food toolkits, over 200 recipes, curriculum, one-on-one technical assistance, as well as in-person and virtual learning sessions- all absolutely free! Just email us at farmtoschool@sevengenerationsahead.org.
Zero Waste Schools
The Zero Waste Schools program at Seven Generations Ahead helps schools drastically reduce waste by shifting operations and minds towards generating zero waste through source reduction, recycling, composting, and food recovery.
To learn how your school can go zero waste, check out our Zero Waste Schools page and our Zero Waste Schools Toolkit. You can also contact us at zerowaste@