Growing Change, One Salad At A Time

8700

Salads Served

40,010

Gallons of Water Saved

657

Plastic Produce Bags Avoided

Healthy Salad Meals is a student-led farm-to-cafeteria program. Students grow lettuce on school-site hydroponic towers, harvest and prepare it, and serve free salads through the school cafeteria. Along the way, they learn what it takes to make a small food system actually work.

Timeline: Idea to Thousands Served

Built by students. Grown on campus. Shared with our community.

2024

Idea Begins

After researching food insecurity in AP Environmental Science, Jackson begins designing a way to grow fresh food directly on the Dos Pueblos campus.

2024-25

8 Months of Building

Students clear the site, level the ground, lay pavers, install hydroponic towers, run electricity, and work through school and food-safety approvals.

January 2025

1st Salads Served

The first school-grown lettuce travels about ten feet from the hydroponic towers into the cafeteria kitchen and onto students’ lunch trays.

2025-2026

100 Salads a Week

Tuesday and Thursday harvests become part of the school week. Students grow, harvest, wash, prepare, and serve roughly 100 free salads each week.

May 2026

7600+ Salads Served

Healthy Salad Meals receives outside recognition and begins developing a model other schools can replicate.

September 2026

Expanding > La Cumbre

Helped launch a new tower-growing program at La Cumbre Junior High, working with students and local partners to begin adapting the model for a second campus.

Who Gets to Eat Well?

For years, I raised money for our local food bank. Canned food was relatively easy to collect. Fresh food was harder. That bothered me. Fruits and vegetables are some of the foods we are constantly told to eat more of, but they are also some of the hardest foods to get to people while they are still fresh.

Freshman year, while working on a school project about food insecurity, I visited Pilgrim Terrace, a retirement community near my school. They were growing lettuce in hydroponic towers. I remember looking at them and thinking: Why couldn’t we do this at school?

At Dos Pueblos, the lettuce now grows about ten feet from the cafeteria. But those ten feet turned out to be the hard part. We had to figure out approvals, food safety, harvesting, washing, refrigeration, student schedules, cafeteria coordination, seedlings, maintenance, and who would take over next.

Healthy Salad Meals started with a simple goal: grow fresh food at school and give it to students for lunch. It became something more interesting. Could students build a small food system inside a public school, make it work, and then leave behind a system that another group of students could run?

Healthy Salad Meals Research

Download the Policy Brief

Read the Case Study

Read the Published Op-Ed

Download Food Access Brief

Founder Research & Writing

Read Award-Winning Essay

School Food Systems

Healthy Salad Meals began with an unused patch of ground beside the Dos Pueblos High School cafeteria. Today, nine hydroponic towers help produce approximately 100 free salads each week. Our policy brief, Ten Feet from Tower to Tray, and accompanying case study document the approvals, partnerships, food-safety procedures, funding, and daily operations behind the program, offering a model other schools can adapt.

Community Food Access

Between July and August 2026, Jackson Simmons-Furlati collected 102 surveys at food-distribution sites in Goleta and Santa Barbara. Eighty-four respondents requested later pickup hours, while 73 reported uncertainty about where to find food resources. Written responses described food that spoiled too quickly, limited choices, and difficulty preparing what was provided.

When Food Is Available but Hard to Use presents these findings, acknowledges the study's limitations, and proposes changes local food providers could investigate.

Published Op-Ed | Ten Feet

Why does school food travel hundreds of miles when some of it could be grown just outside the cafeteria? Drawing on his experience building Healthy Salad Meals, Jackson examines the costs of transporting and storing school food and argues that federal policy should help schools establish small, on-site growing systems. His proposal calls for expanding the Plant-Based Meals in Schools Act to support growing food where students eat it.

Founder Research & Writing

2026 John Locke Institute Global Essay Prize | High Commendation, Public Policy In How Much Is the Value of the Future?, Jackson examines how governments use discount rates to assign monetary value to future consequences, particularly when environmental damage may be irreversible. The essay asks what today's decision-makers owe people who will inherit the consequences.

In The News

KEYT News Channel 3-12: “Dos Pueblos Students Receive First ‘Believe Big’ Award for Growing Campus Food”

Read Article

USDA Team Nutrition described Healthy Salad Meals as “a thoughtful example” of student, staff, and community partner collaboration to promote access to fresh, healthy foods.

Jackson

I’m Jackson, the founder and student director of Healthy Salad Meals. I started the program at Dos Pueblos High School after wondering why schools couldn’t grow some of the fresh food they served themselves. What began with a few hydroponic towers now produces about 100 salads a week. I work with students, cafeteria staff, teachers, and community partners to keep the program running and help bring it to other local schools.

Kieran

I’m Kieran, I'm a senior here at Dos Pueblos and I’m a motivated student with a strong interest in aerospace engineering and the science behind flight and space exploration. I’ve always been curious about how aircraft and spacecraft are designed, built, and tested, and I enjoy learning how math and physics are applied to solve real engineering problems. Through my academic work and extracurricular involvement, I’m working to build a solid foundation in engineering principles, teamwork, and critical thinking. I’m eager to continue developing my skills, gain hands-on experience, and learn from others who share a passion for aerospace and innovation.

Lucas

Hey, my name is Lucas Neushul, and I’m a senior at Dos Pueblos High School. I’m a varsity water polo player at DPHS, have a strong interest in mechanical engineering, and enjoy working on hands-on projects that allow me to solve real-world problems. This is my third year being part of Healthy Salad Meals, where I’ve gained hands-on experience maintaining hydroponic towers, managing water chemistry, harvesting lettuce, and preparing fresh salads for our school. Through this program, I’ve learned more about sustainable agriculture and the science and engineering behind hydroponic farming. I especially enjoy seeing how engineering and sustainability can work together to make a positive impact on our school and the surrounding community.

Emillio

Bio coming soon!

Brandon

My name is Brandon Ceballos, and I’m in ninth grade. I’m part of Healthy Salad Meals, where I help with the process of growing and preparing fresh food for students. I got involved because I wanted to try something new and learn more about where the food we eat comes from. One thing I’ve learned from HSM is that getting fresh food from a garden to the cafeteria takes more work than I expected.

Maddox

Maddox Schapiro is a junior at Dos Pueblos High School in Santa Barbara, California. He is an active and outgoing student who enjoys staying busy, spending time with friends, and being involved in a variety of clubs and sports. Maddox plays lacrosse and also enjoys golfing and spending time at the beach. Outside of school and sports, Maddox loves traveling and making memories with his family. He enjoys exploring new places, experiencing new things, and spending time with the people who are important to him. Maddox is a friendly, hardworking, and curious young man who is beginning to explore his interests and think about his future beyond high school.

Teague

Hey, I'm Teague Learmonth, a 9th grader at Dos Pueblos High School. I'm a swimmer and I also volunteer at the Sea Center. Outside of that, I love playing guitar, and I'm into English, history, and adventuring. I like this program because it brings the community healthy food, raises awareness, and it's a hands on activity that is fun and easy to do. I get to actually do the work, not just hear about it.

Jayce

My name is Jayce, and I am a 9th-grade student. I am part of Healthy Salad Meals, where I help with preparing and packing fresh salads for students. I got involved because I wanted to try something new and learn more about how food gets from growing to the cafeteria. One thing I have learned is how much work goes into preparing fresh food for students. Outside of Healthy Salad Meals, I enjoy playing soccer.

Tony

My name is Tony, and I am a 9th-grade student. I am involved with Healthy Salad Meals, where I help prepare fresh food and keep things organized. I joined because I wanted to learn how food is grown and prepared for students. My favorite part is getting to work with others and seeing the final salads ready for the cafeteria. Outside of HSM, I enjoy playing sports and spending time with my friends.

Jordan

My name is Jordan, and I’m a senior currently attending Dos Pueblos High School. I’ve assisted with harvesting lettuce, refilling the towers with nutrients and water, cleaning the towers, and packing salads. But my favorite task would be packing up all the salads and getting to see the final product. I’ve always been intrigued by agriculture, and through Healthy Salad Meals I was not only able to fulfill this interest; I could help the community while doing so.

Jason

I’m a ninth grader who enjoys working with my friends and learning more about health and nutrition. I like being part of Healthy Salad Meals because I get to watch the food grow and help take care of the towers. I also want to help expand the program so more students and schools can be part of it.

Nick

Bio coming soon!

3-Step Impact Loop

We Grow

School-site hydroponic towers produce fresh romaine with ~90% less water and minimal single-use plastic. Students run seeding → transplant → harvest, logging pH/EC, yield, and cost per head so every salad is traceable and safe.

What it means: local food, real skills, clean data.

We Partner

Local restaurants add a “Peace Salad” to the menu and contribute $10 per salad. Sponsors can fund a tower at a school and receive quarterly impact reports (salads funded, water saved, plastic avoided, CO₂e reduced).

What it means: dollars flow directly into production—no middlemen.

We Serve

Those dollars become free salads for students, teachers and faculty at Dos Pueblos High School —about 100 each week. A local funding loop that helps sustain the program.

What it means: hyperlocal production → direct funding → community benefit.