Last spring, I had the opportunity to organize a trip to the State House with a group of high school students at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School and their teachers, Jonah Maidoff and Louis Hall. We went to talk with elected officials about our local farm-to-school program, and why we thought food education, healthy food in school meals, and hands-on learning in school gardens was important for children.

Cape and Islands Rep. Timothy Madden led us on a VIP tour of the State House, state Sen. Dan Wolf hosted us for lunch, and they really listened to the students’ stories and answered their questions about what could be done to bring farm-to-school education to more schools across Massachusetts. It was a powerful experience for the students, who left Boston feeling that their voices had a real place in our democracy.

Striking a pose during trip to state house.

This past fall, we asked Representative Madden to come meet with the students again here on the Island. He came to the charter school and talked with them about their ideas for policies that could support farm-to-school programs, and taught us the nitty gritty of how a bill becomes a law.

Following up on these meetings, we drafted a resolution that encouraged three state agencies (the Department of Agricultural Resources, the Department of Public Health, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) to work together to find ways to spread farm-to-school efforts statewide, and to declare October as Massachusetts Farm to School Month. Representative Madden submitted the bill in February, H. 2782 and the students could hardly believe that something they helped write had turned into a real piece of pending legislation.

Then Island Grown Schools teamed up with the Massachusetts Farm to School Project, Food Corps, Green Schools and Project Bread to organize the first Farm to School Day at the State House on May 6. We reached out to farm-to-school advocates from around the state and encouraged them to come meet with their own elected officials and share their stories about why farm to school was important in their communities, as we had done the year before.

On Farm to School Day, Jonah and Louis and 10 high school students from the charter school, along with high school alternative education science teacher Anna Cotton and three students, hopped on the bus to Boston. One of the students from the charter school, junior Astrid Tilton, had been doing a mentorship program with me at Island Grown Schools and would be the student speaker at a legislative briefing for elected officials that Representative Madden had organized.

We weren’t sure how many people would come as farm-to-school advocates, or how many legislators would come to the briefing. Representative Madden had reserved a big beautiful room for the meetings right next door to the House chamber, and we were amazed and moved as the room filled up with farm-to-school supporters from every corner of the state, and with legislators and staffers eager to learn more about farm to school.

Mr. Madden and another farm-to-school champion, Rep. Jennifer Benson, welcomed everyone at the briefing, and then I spoke about what farm to school does for our community here on the Vineyard. Simca Horwitz, Eastern Massachusetts program director for the Massachusetts Farm to School Project, talked about the impact of these programs statewide, and Alden Cadwell, food service director at the Brookline Public Schools, talked about why it is important for school meals to be made with healthy ingredients sourced close to home.

Finally, Astrid spoke, and enthralled the standing room-only crowd. “We didn’t come here because we were inspired by the adults who ordered us to eat our vegetables,” she said. “We’re here because we realize the value of all that we learn about food and farming and because we think every student should have access to that knowledge . . . . Our education would be incomplete if we didn’t have at least a basic understanding of something as essential to our lives as the food we eat.”

Danny Mullen, a high school freshman, said he felt everyone at the State House was nicer to each other than he expected, since he hears about politicians fighting all the time.

Charter school senior Bella Maidoff agreed. “I’m usually the student in most interactions,” she said, “but at the State House I was able to share my ideas and experiences to benefit a cause I believe in, and these adults were interested in my input. It was incredible to feel like part of government, making an important change.”

This was the first of what we hope will become the annual Farm to School Day at the State House. We’re now focusing on building a student-to-student farm-to-school network, and on moving our resolution through the state government.

Noli Taylor is program director at Island Grown Schools, a program of the Island Grown Initiative.