James Beard Awards
From Outstanding Restaurants to Best Chef: South, Birmingham has received its fair share of nominations and awards from the James Beard Foundation. The esteemed annual awards honor excellence in cuisine, culinary writing and culinary education in the United States.
Established in 1990, awards are voted on by 600 culinary professionals, including previous award winners. Recipients receive a medallion etched with the image of James Beard and a certificate from the Foundation. Next time you are at a Birmingham favorite restaurant, keep your eyes peeled for a James Beard Award. You never know where one will pop up.
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Jones Valley Teaching Farm
Jones Valley Teaching Farm’s (JVTF) aims to empower and equip young people through hands-on food education. Established as an urban farm in 2002 on a three-acre city block in downtown Birmingham, JVTF operates teaching farms that serve as community hubs and outdoor learning labs. JVTF envisions a Birmingham led by youth and inspired by food — where all students have a transformative educational experience using food, farming and the culinary arts as a foundation for learning.
Using food to bring learning to life, JVTF delivers a food-based education curriculum to pre-K-12 students at teaching farms embedded in six Birmingham City Schools. where students can learn, create, explore and grow a healthy future for themselves and their communities. JVTF’s Good School Food education model is an innovative and rigorous food-based education model founded in 2012 that provides cross-curricular, standards-based instruction across all subject areas to students during and after the school day. But what sets Good School Food apart from other school garden programs is that it provides participating schools with state-of-the-art teaching farms and full-time staff who are paid by Jones Valley.
The elementary, middle and high school teaching farms serve as dynamic outdoor classrooms where students can literally get their hands dirty while learning to manage the farm, deciding what fruits and vegetables to grow based on the time of year, preparing beds, planting and caring for the crops, and harvesting their bounty. At the high school farm, students also have the opportunity to participate in a paid part-time apprenticeship and earn course credit.
JVTF serves over 4,500 students annually at their six school-based teaching farms and thousands more through free virtual programming on their Good School Food mobile app. With the newly constructed Center for Food Education at the downtown farm, JVTF will expand their programming to more students and families in Birmingham, Jefferson County and beyond through hands-on learning experiences.
