NATURAL HOME Earth Mover
John Jacobson
September/October 2004
By Laurel Kallenbach
 |
“There’s real magic in doing something good for others without it being required,” says organic farmer John Jacobson, who has turned fruit sales into a school fundraiser.
Photo by Laurel Kallenbach
|
Natural Home salutes Oregon orchardist John Jacobson, whose organic produce supports local schools.
RELATED CONTENT
Simple herbal recipes for homemade first aid....
Responsible shopping for world arts and crafts requires doing a little homework, but the benefits o...
Being around plants offers a host of benefits, including reducing stress and aggression....
Great items to spruce up your sleep space....
As he monitors apples and pears ripening on his organically farmed trees, John Jacobson, owner of Mt. Hood Organic Farms in Mt. Hood, Oregon, comes up with big ideas—some as large as the massive mountain that looms over his orchards. While he’s tending Jonagolds, Fujis, and Honeycrisps, he envisions band concerts and after-school programs. Jacobson’s orchard-inspired dreams have come to fruition as School Aid, a program in which grocery stores sell his fruit and return a large portion—40 to 50 cents per pound—to local schools. The nonprofit School Aid simultaneously protects the environment, helps kids stay in school, and involves businesses in a philanthropic community venture.
“All the fruit I grow is meant for kids,” says Jacobson, gesturing to row after row of apple trees. His partnership with stores—which sell School Aid organic fruit for a competitive price—funds tutoring programs, homework “clubs,” and Oregon Mentors; buys calculators for college-prep math classes; and helps pay for field trips for inner-city kids. Though the stores give away a large part of their profits, they benefit from publicity generated by supporting neighborhood schools. The School Aid program is currently in three Oregon grocery stores and was tested for six months in eleven Wild Oats locations.
Each piece of School Aid fruit bears a bright red sticker with a yellow school bus and is displayed in a special bin. That school bus has special significance to Jacobson, himself a high school dropout who only later attended college. “When a child gets on the bus the very first day of school, everything is possible—the future is wide open,” he says. “If we could keep kids on that symbolic bus, their chances of staying in school and succeeding in life would improve. But children do get left behind, and I think if they’ve fallen off the bus, it ought to turn around and go back for them.”