Too many kids think potatoes come out of a bag. So says Debra Eschmeyer, the program director of FoodCorps, a new public-service initiative aimed at improving the diets of our nation's schoolchildren. "We want to give them hands-on experience growing healthy food."

In her work with the National Farm to School Network, Eschmeyer -- who co-founded FoodCorps with one of the filmmakers behind the documentary King Corn and a handful of other activists -- often observed that children who had followed their food from seed to plate opted for carrots over sweets. Kids eat at school 180 days a year, she adds. What better place to address their dietary habits?

FoodCorps volunteers, the first 50 of whom began digging in August, will build school gardens, establish links between cafeterias and sources of local, high-quality food, and lead classes on nutrition. (Each will receive a stipend and help repaying student loans.)

Focusing on sites where high rates of childhood obesity coincide with low incomes (such as Flint, Michigan, and Jackson, Mississippi), FoodCorps aims to grow not just healthy kids but our next generation of farmers, policy makers, and environmental and public-health leaders.