Gearing Up Brattleboro Schools with New Kitchen Equipment

During April vacation, our Farm to School team went on a road trip with Brattleboro Town Food Service Director Ali West to Steiger Supply, a family-owned kitchen supply store in Rutland, VT. Ali was like a kid in a candy store, filling her cart with everything from small items like measuring cups and tongs to a commercial immersion blender for making soups and smoothies for the more than 700 students that she cooks for every day. Brattleboro Union High School and Brattleboro Area Middles School (BUHS/BAMS) Food Service Director, Justin Mcardle, also made a trip to Steigers and his purchases included a 40-quart stockpot and a food processor to help him make more soups, sauces, and spreads from fresh, local fruits and vegetables.

These shopping trips were funded by a generous Community Health Rankings and Roadmaps grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation applied for in partnership with the Vermont Department of Health. The goal of this project is to foster health improvement efforts in our community. As a result of this funding, Food Connects was able to provide funds for the Brattleboro Town School District, Brattleboro Area Middle School, and Brattleboro Union High School to buy some much-needed equipment to help them process more fresh, local produce.

Many thanks to our friends at the Vermont Department of Health for collaborating with us on this grant and supporting healthy, fresh, local food in our schools!

West River Education District Hires Garden Coordinator

Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School and NewBrook School have combined forces to hire local farmer and educator, Sam Kilmurray, to coordinate garden activities for students at both schools this spring. Modeled after similar programming in Guilford and Brattleboro, Sam will work with classroom teachers to get even more students working in the garden. She is excited to involve students in planting, maintaining, and harvesting spring crops and will coordinate with teachers to reinforce classroom concepts whenever possible. Co-owner of Amazing Planet Farm in Williamsville, VT, Sam has immense experience in farming. Having participated in the Four Winds program over the past 3 years, Sam is also an experienced outdoor educator and enjoys teaching students new and useful skills for understanding the world around them. This position is generously funded by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, Food Connects, and WRED Medicaid funding.

Cafeterias Unknown: Who was Anthony Bourdain?

“Eat and drink with people without fear and prejudice...they open up to you in ways that somebody visiting who is driven by a story may not get."

Peabody Awards [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)]

Anthony Bourdain, chef, traveler, and storyteller; spent nearly 20 years sharing meals with people from around the world as part of his television series, A Cook’s Tour, No Reservations, and Parts Unknown. Before becoming a television personality, Bourdain held the position of Chef at a number of NYC restaurants, including Supper Club, One Fifth Avenue, and Sullivans. Most notably, he was the executive chef at Brasserie Les Halles in Manhattan for many years.

Between 2002 and 2018, Bourdain visited nearly 90 countries and filmed over 200 episodes about food culture around the world. While he spent much of his twenties and thirties stirring up trouble in professional kitchens around NYC, his television series often took a more serious tone. Bourdain used this platform to convey a sense of disappointment in modern food culture and maintained the opinion that food should be eaten thoughtfully and with others. According to the Washington Post, he once said in an interview with VPR,

“If you sit down with people and just say, ‘Hey, what makes you happy? What’s your life like? What do you like to eat?’ More often than not, they will tell you extraordinary things, many of which have nothing to do with food.”

Our Farm to School team took that notion and ran with it—school cafeteria style. We may not have gotten quite as far as Bourdain. In fact, we didn’t get much further than Bellows Falls. But, we did decide that visiting school cafeterias to eat lunch with local students was going to be an important component of our programming moving forward. We wanted to know what their lives are like and what they like to eat. We wanted to confirm that the stigma around school meals really is changing. And, we’ve heard plenty of extraordinary things.

What Bourdain said was true; food is an incredible conduit for good conversation. While we may have strayed from this tradition a bit in recent years, sharing a meal with others in such an important and nourishing practice. Kids at school do it every day. They pile into the lunchroom with friends and catch up over sandwiches and cartons of milk. They are a jumble of lunchboxes, colorful trays, and winter jackets—and man, do they have a good time!

Anthony Bourdain was all about stepping outside of one’s comfort zone. For many of us adults, school lunch doesn’t quite fit inside that zone. It’s unfamiliar and in many cases, marred by our own primary school experiences. So, we jumped into that zone! We joined students, teachers, and food service professionals in the school food experience. We heard from students that they crave familiar, comforting, and fresh foods; as well as meals that allow for student choice. Food service professionals spoke about their commitment to serving nourishing meal and reducing food waste. And educators are keen to see school meal programs continue to evolve.

As school meal programs are a vital resource for many families, Food Connects is committed to supporting food service professionals in creating programs that they are proud of. Food plays an essential role in community building and we encourage you to learn more about your school meal program. Barack Obama once shared a meal with Anthony Bourdain. He recalls, “This is how I’ll remember Tony. He taught us about food — but more importantly, about its ability to bring us together. To make us a little less afraid of the unknown.”

April 2019 Farm To School Newsletter

April Newsletter

National Garden Month

Vermont’s Junior Iron Chef

Farm to School Resources

Photo by Markus Spiske https://unsplash.com/photos/4yK8iDaWnm8

Celebrating National School Breakfast Week with Senator Becca Balint

Food Connects celebrated National School Breakfast Week during the first week of March by inviting Vermont State Senator Becca Balint to join Food Connects’ Farm to School Team, Sheila Humphreys and Kate Venne, for breakfast with Allegra Carignan’s Kindergarten class at Green Street School.  

Humphreys and Venne met Senator Balint at the school at 8:00 am, just as students were finding their way into classrooms to join their classmates for breakfast. Green Street School serves Breakfast After the Bell in all classrooms, and breakfast participation at Green Street is the highest of all the schools in Windham County, with a whopping 89% of students participating!

As the special guests entered the classroom, they were greeted warmly by Ms. Carignan and her curious students. At Green Street School, breakfast is served in classrooms at the start of each day. The Food Connects team and Senator Becca Balint sat down to a meal of freshly baked blueberry muffins, cheese sticks, and fruit juice with a group of very sweet 5-year-olds.

Over breakfast, students reported that their favorite breakfast at school is bagels, except for the one student at the table who usually eats breakfast at home, and his favorite breakfast is Lucky Charms. Other commonly served breakfast items include hard-boiled eggs, fresh toast, cereal, and scrambled eggs. The students chatted about their pets while Ms. Carignan circulated around the room greeting everyone and collecting their lunch orders. As the group finished breakfast, they joined their classmates on the rug to participate in the morning meeting and sing a song to start their day.

After breakfast, Humphreys and Venne retired to the school library to talk with Senator Balint about the importance of school breakfast and other school meals. School breakfast, and particularly Breakfast After the Bell and Universal Meals, are a huge benefit to children in the Brattleboro community. When students are able to start their day with a nourishing breakfast that is available in the classroom to every student and doesn’t require a child to have to choose between eating breakfast at school in the morning or playing on the playground at the start of the day, more children eat breakfast which means improved behavior, improvements in school climate, more students who start the day ready to learn, and a reduction in nurse visits. In addition, Brattleboro Town Schools have Universal Meals, which is an enormous help to children in Brattleboro because it eliminates stigma and makes nourishing meals accessible to all students. Additionally, increased participation in school meal programs leads to increased financial viability, which ultimately results in improved food quality—commonly referred to as the Virtuous Cycle of School Meals!  

Have you eaten breakfast or lunch at a school lately? Food Connects and the Brattleboro Town Schools meal program encourages you to try it! In fact, Chef Ali West and Humphreys went to Montpelier a couple of weeks ago for School Nutrition Day at the State House and invited all of the legislators from WSESU to have breakfast or lunch in a school in their district. If you’d like to try a meal at a local school, just be sure to call ahead and let them know you’re coming!

Let’s Grow Together!

Reflecting on our March Garden Workshops & Celebrating National Garden Month

According to the National Gardening Association, “Every April communities, organizations, and individuals nationwide celebrate gardening during National Garden Month. Gardeners know, and research confirms, that nurturing plants is good for us: attitudes toward health and nutrition improve, kids perform better at school, and community spirit grows. Join the celebration and help to make America a greener, healthier, more livable place!”

This March, we partnered with the VT Community Garden Network (VCGN) and the Retreat Farm to host a gathering for school garden champions in southern Vermont. This workshop, called Let’s Grow Together, was a time for school teams to identify needs, connect with resources, share stories, and spend time hashing out plans for 2019 school gardens. It is also the first in a series of workshops we will be hosting for educators to come together and focus on different aspects of farm to school programming. We began the evening with a presentation by the VT Community Garden Network about Community Engagement in School Gardens. Libby Weiland, Statewide Network Coordinator for VCGN, shared examples and best practices for engaging families and community members in school gardens from across the state. Following this discussion, attendees broke out into teams to start drafting plans for spring. A few highlights include:

• Green Street School’s plan to create a rooftop garden

• Bellows Falls Middle School’s plan to host a garden tour and community gathering this fall

• Edible Brattleboro’s intention to share sheet mulching resources with workshop participants

• Renewed interest in Harvest of the Month Taste Test training for parents & teachers

Thanks to Kevin Stine, Food Connects Board Member, Master Gardener, and Master Composter for sharing his wisdom that evening. And of course, big shoutout to Ali West, Food Service Director for the Brattleboro Town Schools, for preparing a delicious feast of roasted sweet potatoes, massaged kale salad and root vegetable soup!

What will your school do to celebrate National Garden Month?

Leland & Gray Reps Southern VT in Statewide Cooking Competition

This March, the Rebel Diablos of Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School, competed in Vermont’s Junior Iron Chef competition in Essex Junction. The team prepared Jerked Jackfruit Tacos and came away with the Mise en Place award, meaning they demonstrated exemplary teamwork, order, and professionalism. The team was comprised of students Mykah Meizis, Teagan Powling, and Savannah Lawley and coached by health teacher, Sue Jones. According to Jones, the students “represented themselves and their school with grace, poise, and talent.” Congrats Leland & Gray!

Photo by VT FEED.

Jr Iron Chef VT is a statewide culinary competition organized by Vermont FEED challenging teams of middle and high school students to engage in improving their own health and the health of their community by creating nutritious, local dishes to inspire school meal programs. Visit their website to learn more!

And check out the Rebel Diablos recipe today!

Farm to School Program to Expand Professional Development Offerings

As Farm to School programming continues to grow in local schools, Food Connects’ Farm to School team is gearing up to train and support even more educators. We are excited to connect with new teachers, child nutrition professionals, and community partners to share best practices from schools across Vermont and New England.

We understand that connectedness is essential to the success of farm to school programming in southern Vermont. We know that this kind of education cannot happen in silos and it’s clear that our southern Vermont school partners feel the same way. In an effort to facilitate peer learning, resource sharing, and general connectedness in the farm to school community, Food Connects will kick off our “Let’s Grow Together” series of workshops for farm to school champions this spring. Workshops will be content-specific, including topics such as composting, seed-starting, cooking with kids, school food 101, farm to school curricular connections, and much more!

It is our hope that these workshops will serve as a space for farm to school partners to gather, learn, and inspire one another. By creating these “communities of practice,” we hope to help make farm to school programming easy, sustainable, and fun! Stay tuned for more details.

We are eager to learn more about your professional development needs and interests, so please reach out to our team with any ideas you may have.

Learn more about our Let’s Grow Together series today!

Cafeterias Unknown: Academy School

Pictured: Jo Carol (left) and Ali West (right)

On Tuesdays, we each nachos. For lunch. With refried beans and zesty potato wedges. Top it off with a local apple and you’ve got yourself lunch at Academy School in Brattleboro!

A few weeks back, I went to lunch with Jo Carol Ratti, principal of the Dummerston School for the past 20 years, who was keen to see what’s cookin’ in Brattleboro. So, we joined food service director, Ali West, for lunch at Academy School.

You might wonder what fueled Jo Carol’s curiosity. In her final year at Dummerston, she has been part of a movement that’s beginning to take place. A group of passionate parents has come together to support the school in improving food quality and re-envisioning the school lunch menu. School meals are a complicated world of USDA regulations, tight budgets, and particular customers—so Jo Carol decided to visit Brattleboro for some inspiration.

The Brattleboro Town School District has improved food quality over the past 5 years by adopting a set of higher food standards and recruiting a stellar food service director to oversee their implementation. Simply put, Ali West is a Rockstar (with a capital R) and is fully committed to serving good food to her students each and every day. She sources a variety of locally grown products and works hard to ensure the district’s higher food standards are met each week.

Luckily, Ali was able to sneak out of the kitchen for a few minutes to eat lunch and share some wisdom with us. We joined a group of students at the “peanut free” table and set to polishing off our nachos and beans. Academy’s cafeteria is in a shared space with the gymnasium. Students flow through the kitchen to pick up the lunch they ordered earlier in the day and then head next door to grab fruit and a place to sit. Each day, Ali and her staff fill a big bowl with local apples for students to grab as a final addition to their lunch. The menu for Brattleboro Town Schools is similar to other Cafe Services schools, with a few twists. Ali offers local apples and yogurt each day, as well as vegetarian options for students. Her March menu features vegan “Neatballs” and a BBQ tofu sandwich, to replace items featuring animal proteins. The district has eliminated a variety of unhealthy ingredients, including things like high fructose corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and food dyes.

Ali and her staff connect with Academy students during meal times and have found creative ways to increase participation in school meals. The lunch line is adorned with colorful VT Harvest of the Month posters as well as pictures featuring local farms. To top it all off, the kitchen door boasts its very own “farm to school” sign.

All in all, a fulfilling experience. Until next time Academy!

March 2019 Farm To School Newsletter

March Newsletter

National School Breakfast Week

Spring Garden Planning Workshops

Food Connects us with History

Green Street Herbs in a Main Street Restaurant