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Jeffrey Town’s School-Feeding Program

children-eating-jeffrey-town-jamaicaJeffrey Town Farmers’ Association is a long-standing partner of TTFF’s. We are working closely together to increase the number of schools in our school-feeding program in their community. We strive to provide a meal to every local child who needs one. 

Jeffrey Town is rural and hilly. It consists mainly of smallholder farmers. The roads are poor and farmers lose a large portion of their harvest due to being unable to get food to the market before it spoils. To address this challenge, TTFF has provided equipment to help shred and dry fruit. Drying excess fruit shows to be an excellent method to extend the lives of farmers’ harvests. Farmers who own fruit-bearing trees shred their fruit and then take the shreds to a community center to grind them into flour. This flour can be sold, and also consumed at home, improving livelihoods of each farmer. It is also this flour that is used for school meals!

children-eating-jeffrey-town-jamaica-2aWith donations for school-feeding programs, TTFF provides locally-sourced breadfruit flour to partnering schools. Currently, the school-feeding program in Jeffrey Town reaches three schools: Wallingford Basic School, Jeffrey Town Basic School and Jeffrey Town Primary School. (Basic schools educate children ages three to six, primary schools educate children ages six to 11.) Students receive a bowl of breakfast porridge each morning, made from the locally produced breadfruit flour, to get them ready to learn. The mix is currently composed of breadfruit flour, banana flour, cornmeal, brown sugar, dry coconut milk and spices. It’s nutritious and tasty. The mix has been taste-tested over a period of years through our partnership and the help of this very community. Of 35 students in one class at Wallingford school, 34 gulp down the porridge immediately.

Children in this community are being nurtured in a positive, sustainable way through our partnership with JTFA. They eat locally grown meals, made by their own community members. The porridge specifically has the advantage of being a “green food,” where a large portion is from trees and solar dried.

TTFF continues to be proud to work with the community of Jeffrey Town and we hope this working model can be emulated in other communities across the world.

 

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