Round Hill Renaissance Agriculture Foundation, Camrose County, AB
Grant term, 2025-2026
Round Hill is a small hamlet in Camrose County, Alberta, where, like many rural communities, families can face real barriers to consistent access to nutritious food. For the students of Round Hill School, that meant too many mornings arriving hungry, or without a decent meal waiting for them at home.
Over the past five years, the Round Hill Renaissance Agriculture Foundation (RHRAF) has worked to change that story — one meal, one lesson, and one harvest at a time — through its Farm to School program, supported by the School Food Infrastructure Fund.
At the heart of the program is a daily hot breakfast, now available to every student at Round Hill School. It’s a simple idea with a big impact: teachers have noticed students who once struggled to stay focused in the morning are now more alert, more engaged, and more ready to learn. Once a month, students in grades 6 through 9 plan, prepare, and serve a community hall lunch for more than 200 people. Far from just a meal, it’s a full learning experience — students take on real responsibility for menu planning, food preparation, and service, building practical skills while feeding and connecting with their community. Leftover lunches are boxed up. Some are sent home with students for their families, others frozen and kept at the school to make sure no student goes without a lunch.
New kitchen equipment and a chest freezer purchased with the grant funding have allowed RHRAF to bring more fresh, local, and seasonal produce into school meals. On the RHRAF site itself, an expanding garden and young fruit trees and bushes are laying the groundwork for the organization to grow and harvest even more of its own food in the years ahead.
Food literacy is woven through every part of the program. Students are learning how to store and preserve food for the seasons ahead — skills that reduce waste and ensure seasonal food is available year round. They’re also learning from Indigenous elders, who lead students in foraging on the land and teach them to prepare and cook bannock over an open fire, connecting food education to traditional knowledge and practices that have sustained communities for generations.
The program has also grown through partnerships. Educators continue to lead hands-on food preservation workshops, and a new connection with Agwell — an organization focused on mental wellness in Alberta’s rural communities — reflects something RHRAF has seen firsthand: that growing, harvesting, and cooking food together isn’t just good for the body, it’s good for the mind.
As one teacher put it: “The grant has allowed us to turn a simple idea into a meaningful community initiative. Rooted in the tradition of sharing food, it has brought families, seniors, local farmers and businesses together around nutritious meals and shared experiences. Beyond the table, students are developing practical life skills, building confidence, earning food safety certification, and creating connections across generations. The initiative demonstrates how education can extend beyond the classroom to strengthen both our students and our community”.
Round Hill’s Farm to School program is serving more than a meal. It’s teaching the next generation of students where food comes from, how to care for it, and how to share it — while making sure that, every day, no student has to learn on an empty stomach.
