Dublin & Dairy: How Dublin Christian Academy is Honoring Its Roots

If you’re from New England and read the news often, you have probably caught wind of how dairy farms in the region are struggling. And they’ve recently hit an even deeper blow when Danone announced they would stop purchasing dairy from over 90 Northeast dairy farms. In our role as a food distributor, we have a responsibility to our farmers to help them find solutions to problems like these. 

When Pete Miller of Miller Farm (you might remember reading about them last year) came to Food Connects looking for ways to get his Vermont dairy into schools as another market for his high-quality product, we were a bit stumped at first. Schools often have milk available for students in single-serving small bottles. For many public schools, purchasing local milk every week just wasn’t financially feasible—making it a tough sell for Pete to invest in the special bottling equipment needed. 

Enter Dublin Christian Academy (DCA). DCA is a local pre-K through 12th-grade private school in Dublin, New Hampshire. And a staple of most private schools is their school nutrition programs are often independently run, are not limited by the same USDA purchasing standards, and have larger budgets. When we approached DCA about purchasing Miller Farm milk, it was a no-brainer—the school itself used to be a dairy farm. And now, they have a standing order which makes creating the 8 oz single-serving bottles more sustainable for Pete. Knowing that he will have a consistent buyer for the products makes it easier to sell to other schools with less frequent purchasing schedules.

And since August 2021, DCA has purchased more than 2,600 8 oz bottles of Miller Farm milk!

We chatted with Bethany Paquin, Director of Development, to learn more about the school. We wanted to get to know DCA a little bit better and why they’re on board to help local dairy farmers like Pete. 

What made you decide to work with Food Connects?

In 2020-2021 we weren’t able to offer a foods service program to our students because of COVID-19—we provided food to dorm students, but not our normal mass lunches. This gave us the opportunity to look at how our meal service worked. We wanted to offer different food choices and responsibly grown and raised products.

Our values align with “community,” and we love to source our food from farms and local producers. The campus was originally Staghead Farm, before the lands and buildings were donated to become a Christian school in 1964. At first, students were running the farm, which wasn’t sustainable for the school, but our early experiences have left us with very nostalgic feelings about that part of the school’s heritage.

How has the students’ response been to the Miller Farm milk? Are they excited that it is sourced locally?

The students are really enjoying having the local milk available. The younger students are especially enthusiastic about the maple and chocolate milk, which they haven’t had in the past. 

Is there any feedback from the field trip to Miller Farm? What did the students learn? 

Our seventh, eighth, and ninth-grade classes visited. The students are at a point where they are thinking more about where their food comes from and how it is produced. The students said they had a lot of fun and enjoyed learning about the milk bottling process and seeing all the animals, especially the cows that produce the milk. Silas Paquin, an eight grade student, said he drank a whole pint of milk and it was really good. Seventh-grader Sarah Ryan was amused by watching the chickens jump on the cows!

How has this benefitted your students?

There are certainly all the nutritional benefits. But it also develops connections for them in the community. More and more, the students get to recognize the businesses in the community where they get their food from—deepening their sense of place.

Anything else that you would like to share?

This past fall, we had an alumni dinner and featured some Food Connects producers, like Grafton Village Cheese. And this is just another opportunity to build some connections between these farms and the extended DCA family which includes alumni, former faculty, and former parents and grandparents.

Our parents are also really glad to see this partnership—knowing that their kids are getting good quality food from farms and businesses in the community that they trust. It’s a win-win!

Essex High School Partners with Food Connects

When you were in school, did you know where your food was coming from? Was your cafeteria sourcing from a local farm? Were you excited about food and learning more about it? Luckily, the answer to most of these questions for students throughout the Essex Westford School District is a resounding “yes!”

Essex High School, and the district at large, started purchasing local food from Food Connects in late 2021. The school nutrition program started with products like cheese from 5 Generations Creamery (over 80 lbs already!—that’s a lot of cheese!) and sparkling beverages from Samara. As they continue to experiment with more local foods, the students are the ones who will see the real benefits.

To learn more about the program and where they are heading with local foods, we chatted with Meghan Martin, the Child Nutrition Administrative Assistant.

What made you decide to work with Food Connects?

We were looking to expand our local food purchasing. Food Connects has direct connections with farms in Vermont and it makes it easier for us to put a name to the food that we’re serving our students. We have had that direct connection to farms in the past and we are excited to be able to continue highlighting a wider variety of local food producers. Starting slow but hoping to expand the local offerings in the future.

Parfaits made with Narragansett Creamery yogurt.

What products have been successful so far?

We purchased Narragansett yogurt and beef from Boyden Farm. Because the high school is a larger kitchen they can do more cooking with different local products and try out more recipes to see what works best. Those two items worked well!

Right now, the local food we are purchasing is just going to the high school and occasionally gets sent out to other schools. We tested out yogurt at the 3rd through 5th-grade school which was successful. With the larger kitchen size and student body at our high school, we find that it’s easier to start there with our scratch cooking products with the goal of then expanding our offerings into our other schools to the roughly 4,000 students district-wide.

Why are you interested in having regionally-sourced foods in your cafeteria?

The Farm to School movement is so prevalent right now. We have dabbled in it here and there. What we really want is to bring whole fresh foods into the district while supporting the local economy. As much as we are able, we want to close the gap between our students and the local food system and create a lasting connection between the two. It’s exciting that we are able to expand their horizons with their culinary palette and teach them what types of food we have available in our area. 

Spaghetti and meat sauce made with Boyden Farm beef.

We saw that this year meals in the Essex Westford School district are free for all students 18 and under. How has this impacted your meal program?

This was through USDA waivers. With the help of these waivers, we have been able to put more focus and resources back into our meal program and we’ve seen that on average 67% more students are choosing school meals. That’s significantly more engagement and more bellies full with high quality and nutritious foods.

Additionally, Scott Fay, Senior Child Nutrition Manager, and Andrew Peet, Child Nutrition Site Manager, really wanted to work with Food Connects because of the Vermont Local Purchasing Incentive. Both this incentive and the USDA waiver put more funds back into the program and the food we provide, which allows us to get higher quality products.

How has this benefitted your students?

The students are able to access more food through the school. The more nutritious food the kids eat, the more they are ready to learn and be active throughout the day. There is already lots of positive feedback about the meals we serve—the students and staff are excited about the fresh, local food they are getting each day.

Anything else that you would like to share?

This year we have tried to revamp the menu, with the hope that it will bring in more participation and therefore revenue for the program. This includes more scratch cooking with fresh, whole produce and ingredients and so far, we are getting lots of positive feedback from changes especially when we can serve foods like Shepherd’s pie using beef from Boyden Farm. It has definitely been a process doing it on a large scale and district-wide but we have an amazing team and we’ve been working out all the details with staff over the years. We’re very excited about all the new menu changes.

Additionally, we have a Farm to School program and have done cooking activities with students and taste tests in the past. Most of that has put that on hold due to COVID-19 but we have started small again by doing more school-wide taste tests with the younger students. Our hope is that we can do these taste tests to gather feedback from students and update our menu with their input. We are also looking forward to the possibility of incorporating more Farm to School and nutrition content into the curriculum.

Bringing Local Food to Schools

It’s National Farm to School Month, and our Food Hub is excited to celebrate our partnerships with local schools. Did you know that we deliver regionally grown food to more than 30 schools in our area? Each new school we work with means more students have access to local and nutritious foods.

Since July 2021, K-12 schools have purchased nearly $100,000 in local products from Food Connects—that’s more local dollars going back to our community and farmers! Vermont public schools alone totaled over $70k, $43k of which came from Vermont producers.

The Windham Northeast Supervisory Union’s (WNESU) Farm to School Cafe is a major contributor to this success. Over the summer, Harley Sterling, the School Nutrition Director for WNESU, and his team made weekly food boxes for hundreds of kids, ensuring all students had access to food throughout the summer. Stay tuned for more about this project! Or check out their holiday highlight or Cafeterias Unknown feature.  

Other than these great stories, we’ve introduced some new, school-focused products to schools.

1. The Bread Shed: “Humble Whole Wheat Loaf”

   • At 54% whole wheat, this product meets USDA regulations for the National School Lunch Program.

   • We distributed samples to schools and sold over 200 loaves since the start of the school year.

2. Miller Farm: 8 oz bottles of whole milk

   • Since late August, Food Connects has already sold more than 600 bottles to school. 

   • The bottles work well in private schools and as a special feature or part of “a la carte” sections in public schools.

If you haven’t heard already, there is a new local food purchasing incentive for schools in Vermont. “Act 67 created a pilot program that would temporarily establish a tiered incentive for public schools to purchase food from Vermont’s farmers: buy 15% local products, receive 15 cents back for every lunch served. The law also creates 20% and 25% tiers.” This means that the more local food purchased and the more students served, the more school nutrition programs benefit. And our Food Hub is ready to help by providing a plethora of quality Vermont products through our wide network.

Since the start of September, Vermont public schools have purchased over $14k food from Food Connects. Between already established purchasing practices and the new local purchasing incentive, $11k of these sales are from Vermont producers—totaling over 75% of purchases. Some of the farms and producers that are seeing sales to local schools include:

• Eggs from Maple Meadow Farm in Salisbury, VT

• Apples from Dutton Berry Farm in Newfane, VT, and Green Mountain Orchard in Putney, VT

• Pears from Champlain Orchards in Shoreham, VT

• Yogurt from Green Mountain Creamery in Brattleboro, VT

• A variety of veggies from Harlow Farm and Allen Brothers in Westminster, VT, in addition to Milkweed Farm in Guilford, VT

We also have a new partner in Karen Russo, Director of the Child Nutrition Program at Orange Southwest School District. Karen started ordering from Food Connects at the start of the 2021-22 school year, and her passion to feed her students nutritious and local foods has been evident from the start of our partnership. In her first month of deliveries alone, she has purchased a wide variety of fruits and veggies, including local apples, pears, carrots, corn, peppers, tomatoes, and so much more! In partnership with their Farm to School Coordinator, they will be making kale chips to serve over 400 kids across all of their elementary schools. 

We’re so excited that the school year is off to a great start. We can’t wait to see where our partnerships and local food purchasing incentive take us this school year!