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Rockford Crunches into Farm to School

300,000 Illinois Students Celebrate Farm to School Month with a CRUNCH!

By Lydia Mills, Illinois State Lead, National Farm to School Network

Illinois apples made National School Lunch Week and Farm to School Month a success across the state on Thursday, October 13th, 2016, as over 300,000 students crunched into local apples all at the same time. The Illinois Great Apple Crunch is a one-day event all about promoting locally grown apples, and this year more than double the schools participated in purchasing local food and engaged in celebratory, educational activities.

applecrunch-1In northern Illinois, Rockford Public School District 205 celebrated the Illinois Great Apple Crunch with apples from Rendleman Orchard in Alto Pass. Wayne Sirles, president and owner of the farm, noted on the Crunch: “The movement has a huge impact for family farms and the Illinois rural economy. It was exciting to see our apples in the school’s cafeteria.”

Representatives from the Illinois Farm to School Network, USDA Food and Nutrition Service, and the local media attended lunch at Riverdahl Elementary and cheered as students crunched into their apples. Students called the taste of the Illinois-grown apples both sour and sweet, and the green apples were a hit. Eleanor Thompson, Acting Branch Chief of the Midwest Regional Office, praised the school for their efforts. The apples, along with colorful materials designed to celebrate National School Lunch Week, made for an appealing cafeteria environment on the Apple Crunch day.

This fun farm to school program has galvanized Rockford Public School District from district offices to classrooms of all ages. Rolando Saucedo, Production Supervisor for the Nutrition Services, said: “We also sent apples to all administrative staff, teachers and all other support staff! Our final estimate of participation would be around 23,000 staff and students crunched apples in Rockford Public Schools District 205.”

The Rockford district is also a participant in the Illinois Farm to School Network’s pilot program, Illinois Harvest of the Month. Putting local foods on the menu not only supports local farmers, it also enhances the meal tray and makes kids excited to eat school food. If your school is interested in participating in more farm to school programs, check out the resources on the Illinois Farm to School website.

Anticipating, Savoring & Preserving the Harvest- Hands-on training that makes sense!

It’s springtime in the scenic Finger Lakes region of New York. Bees are flitting from flower to flower as young green folliage shoots up from the ground along the narrow lakes which make up this area. But not everyone is focussed on the wonders of springtime in this picturesque slice of Central New York. If the wind is just right, the scent of sauteed autumn squash tossed with late onions drifts on that cool spring breeze from the New York State Wine and Culinary Center. It makes one think of fall, not springtime. As you near the door to the culinary lab, the sound of whirring fans from multiple dehydrators and laughter can be heard from the hallway. Wait a minute.. what’s going on?

Finger Lakes area of New York

Finger Lakes area of New York

Those sounds and smells are coming from a Farm-to-Cafeteria training designed to create a bridge between local food service cooks to the incredible array of seasonal produce in their region. The group responsible for putting together this unseasonal and well-thought-out training series? The Finger Lakes Farm-to-Cafeteria group, located in Central New York. This farm-to-cafeteria group is a project of Seeking Common Ground in collaboration with Cornell Cooperative Extension of Ontario County, Cornell’s Farm-to-School program, Bloomfield Central School District, Happy Goat Farm and Rosecrest Farm. A group of like-minded and dedicated professionals working to connect their regional foods to local cafeterias.

I’m sure you’ve heard of farm-to-school or farm-to-cafeteria trainings, many taking place across the U.S. on any given day. I know you’re thinking: “Why would one more training be worth mentioning?” Why? Because this training focussed on one very important point; “Promoting menu planning that considers future harvest peaks and flexible recipe development based on produce availability.” Think about that for a moment. For anyone with a background in managing an institutional program or cooking in an institutional kitchen, that’s quite a statement! And, a very difficult one to back up.

Herds of Rosecrest Farm in New York

Herds of Rosecrest Farm in New York

I know you’re wondering, why? Why is it so difficult for institutions like schools, colleges and hospitals to be flexible when it comes to incorporating fresh and seasonal local foods into their weekly menus? Why is such a frustrating process for these food service professionals to “go with the flow” of seasonal foods in their region? To answer those questions we need to dig deep into the process of putting food on trays, one that is used by institutions like k-12 schools. This is a process that has a staus quo some thirty to forty-years-old.

Limited funds have always, and will always, be an issue. In order to keep their programs above the turbulent financial waters, institutional food service has been forced into a bidding process much akin to the gladiator games of Rome. Only the biggest (and cheapest) may win!  For schools to save money while operating on a shoestring budget, they bid out a “primary vendor” contract to provide up to 95% of their food, chemicals, and disposable products at cheaper prices. And, with that primary bid, any purchasing control these institutions had is swiftly and quite efficiently taken out of their hands.

Now, factor in the preplanned menu grid, which is tied to the prime vendor contract and those cheaper products. Everything arrives from another part of the country, or the world, ready to be utilized daily. Prices are kept low due to volumes ordered and a gurainbow-carrotsarentee that schools will be ordering for the length of the contract.

Pencil in local foods, if you can. Remember, local food volumes are dependent on weather, bug and disease control and market pricing. And then there’s the ability of school buyers to understand the seasons- which products are normally available during which months. Now, we expect them to easily incorporate these wonderful foods into existing menus. It’s not easy, on any level!

And, that’s why trainings like the one in the Finger Lakes New York area make perfect sense. By educating food service personel to the seasons, the harvest and availability, you give them an important tool. By providing hands-on lessons to incorporate local foods into their existing and future menus, you give them back their ability to put fresh foods on the lunch tray.

In the end, you’ve essentially given them the recipe to educate, and celebrate healthy foods on the lunch tray. Win/win in anyone’s book!

 

 

Farm to School Grant: First End of Year Wrap Up

The first school year of our USDA Farm to School grant is over, and we have done a lot out in Kane County with some wonderful and motivated schools. We’ve worked with teachers (from art to science!), food service directors, cafeteria staff, principals, and of course, lots of great students. With the help of the Kane County Fit For Kids program, we have had a lot of success in our three pilot districts of West Aurora SD 129, East Aurora SD 131, and CCSD 300 in the Carpentersville area.

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While it took some time in the winter for us to organize our work in the school districts, by the end of the year we were growing and growing – just like the greens on the Tower Garden shown here at East Aurora High School. We installed Tower Gardens across Kane County and will be doing more to share curriculum resources and activities with teachers in the coming school year.

In addition to our direct work in the schools, we have also been hard at work behind the scenes to create an Illinois Harvest of the Month program. The goal of the program is to make it easy for school districts to buy and showcase local products on their menus with a monthly featured item. We conducted lots of taste tests at the pilot schools to develop ideas for what foods and activities work best. In the next school year, our three pilot school districts will begin rolling out Illinois Harvest of the Month! More information (plus a new website!) coming soon.

We are working hard this summer to prepare for the work next school year. We will do more hands on trainings with teachers, food service staff, and even local farmers to help them learn how to participate in the Harvest of the Month program. What we build through this grant will have a long term impact on farm to school throughout the state, and we could not be happier.

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Summit Success

The Illinois Farm to School Summit was the first event hosted and coordinated by the Illinois Farm to School Network, and we had a great time in Springfield working with so many enthusiastic farm to school supporters!

Quick Facts:

  • Over 90 people from around the state registered for the conference, including teachers, food service staff, community advocates, and farmers.
  • Food service workers from school districts all over the state were able to quickly learn some advanced skills and cooked a huge meal from scratch.
  • We worked with five farms, including a local meat processor, to set our menu.
  • Composting at the Summit was able to divert over 50 pounds of food scraps from the landfill, meaning that we turned our local lunch into local soil!
  • We mapped out a strategic plan for farm to school in Illinois – which you will hear more about over the coming months.
  • Illinois farmers came out to speak about their participation in farm to school, including Wayne Sirles of Rendleman’s Orchards and Gary Neibrugge of the Krops 4 Kids Program.
  • The local CBS news affiliate brought a camera crew to document the incredible kitchen work – watch the coverage here!

We’ll share the strategic plan and workshop materials soon. Here are some great photos from the day, including the hands on cafeteria training and lunch!

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