Meet
Lauren
Driscoll
Meet
Lauren
Driscoll
School Nutrition service member
lauren.driscoll@foodcorps.org | (734) 834-2693
Lauren Driscoll, FoodCorps/Americorps
As a FoodCorps “School Nutrition Service Member,” Lauren serves 11 school districts through the Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District, and is based in Groundwork’s Petoskey office. Lauren works in that nexus where school children and food meet: hands-on lessons in school gardens, healthy taste-tests and cooking demonstrations, and broader farm-to-school initiatives. The theme that weaves all of Lauren's work together? Fostering schoolwide communities of health.
“At Groundwork I’m excited to see the effect we can have as a team on farm to school across the district,” Lauren says. “As we tie more schools to local farms, and teach more kids about gardening and food and their connection to it, I’m certain the movement will find momentum from the infectious excitement I see on kids’ faces every time they try a new vegetable or plant a new native seed.”
Working with students gives Lauren the chance to “see the synapses fly in their brains” as they think of new vegetables, how they grow, and how they connect to a student’s own food preferences and culture. “I’m blessed to watch first-hand as a student picks corn from a Three Sisters Garden, connects it to the food the child eats at home, and ponders ancestors that used the same methods of farming years ago. Seeing this effect in person is such a blessing.”