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Food Connects and Fresh Picks Cafe to Present at National Conference

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Sheila Humphreys, Food Connects’ Farm to School Coordinator, and Ali West of Fresh Picks Cafe and the Brattleboro Town Schools’ Food Service Director, will present at the 10th National Farm to Cafeteria Conference. The conference will take place from April 21 to 23 in Albuquerque, NM.

The National Farm to Cafeteria Conference is a biennial event hosted by the National Farm to School Network. The conference convenes stakeholders throughout Farm to School to “source local food for institutional cafeterias and foster a culture of healthy food and agricultural literacy across America.”  

Sheila presenting at a recent Trauma & Nutrition training for local schools, hosted by Food Connects.

Sheila presenting at a recent Trauma & Nutrition training for local schools, hosted by Food Connects.

Sheila and Ali will present on the work they’ve done to incorporate a trauma-sensitive lens into Farm to School programming. With an increased awareness of the importance of trauma-informative practices in schools, teachers and staff are discovering the strong role food plays in the conversation. “Food and trauma are intertwined,” says Sheila. “Food can establish a strong sense of community but can also be a point of stress and anxiety, especially in an overwhelming cafeteria environment, and for students experiencing food insecurity at home.” 

Ali is an invaluable partner in this work and a Farm to School champion within the district and through statewide advocacy. She is instrumental in the implementation of new programs such as Share Coolers in the Brattleboro Town Schools, which allows students to share what they don’t eat, provides a quick and easy snack for others who may still be hungry, and reduces food waste. Through programs like these, and shifting the focus in the cafeteria to trauma-sensitive practices, Ali and Sheila work to reduce stigma around food, increase food access, and bring awareness to implicit biases. 

Food Connects’ intensive work on developing a trauma-informed approach to education in the Brattleboro Town Schools wouldn’t be possible without their partners within the district and a two-year grant awarded by the Thompson Trust. 

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Cafeterias Unknown: Thanksgiving Extravaganza

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November is a time when Farm to School comes alive in the cafeteria. As the Vermont growing season comes to an end and excitement grows for Thanksgiving break, school nutrition staff across the state are hard at work preparing feasts for hundreds. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, and roasted veggies fill students’ trays as each school celebrates the holiday in their own unique way. I was able to visit a few schools, lend a hand in the preparations, and enjoy some delicious food. Did I mention, Thanksgiving is also my favorite meal of the year? 

Guilford

Chef Dan serving up stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Chef Dan serving up stuffing and mashed potatoes.

Guilford Central School hosts a Thanksgiving lunch for staff, students, and parents and this year over half the dishes being served were local—the turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and apple crisp to be exact. Pulling into the parking lot, it was clear that word of the menu had gotten out and I ended up having to park on the street!

After trekking across the parking lot, I made my way through packed hallways to find Chef Dan in the kitchen. Kindergarten through third grade had just finished up and he was getting ready for the second wave of hungry customers. I washed my hands, put on some gloves, and jumped in the buffet line. The staff volunteers and I served up heaping plates of food to grateful students and their teachers and parents until the tables were packed full. 

After the rush, it was time for me to load up a plate for myself and revel in the delicious food. The sweet potatoes in particular were a highlight—perfectly cooked and accompanied by a medley of spices that brought the dish to another level. Kudos to Chef Dan for pulling off an amazing meal, I’ll definitely be back next year! 

Full house in the Guilford Central School cafeteria during their Thanksgiving lunch.

Full house in the Guilford Central School cafeteria during their Thanksgiving lunch.

Westminster

At Westminster, their community meal diverts from the traditional Thanksgiving dishes, and instead keeps the spotlight on local. I arrived the day before to see what work went into hosting the community. Student ownership is what it’s all about at WCS and at around 1pm, the whole school gathered in the gym to break into their respective “longboats” (the school mascot is a Viking). From there, students set off on their tasks. Some groups were prepping the silverware, while others were decorating the rows of tables laid out in the gym. I followed a large group to the cafeteria, where 40 students equipped with peelers, knives, and cutting boards would be prepping produce for the meal.

Students washed, peeled, and chopped the produce themselves (with adult supervision!)

Students washed, peeled, and chopped the produce themselves (with adult supervision!)

Local carrots and potatoes and onions grown in the school garden before being prepped by the students.

Local carrots and potatoes and onions grown in the school garden before being prepped by the students.

With food from the school garden and local farms spread across the tables, students in the cafeteria broke up into stations. Three groups peeled and washed potatoes, others chopped carrots, while the last two groups were tasked with dicing onions—four quarts of diced onions later, there was a fair share of onion-induced tears. To say the cafeteria was calm would be a lie, but a teacher-led each group of students and modeled safe knife skills. The whole room remained in a state of controlled chaos while students engaged in real work and helped the school’s nutrition staff prepare for the upcoming feast. 

At the end of the hour, everyone was able to admire their handiwork. Cheese plates ready for eating and the veggies prepared for Melissa—WSC’s site nutrition manager—to transform into delicious chowder. The following day, students would be able to invite their families and friends into the school to share a meal they truly had a part in creating.

Cheese plates arranged for the next day’s big event.

Cheese plates arranged for the next day’s big event.

Does your school have a community feast, holiday meal, or local day that you’d like to celebrate? I’d love to highlight your traditions in our newsletter—email me at conor@foodconnects.org!

By Conor Floyd


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Taste Tests: From Garden to Classroom to Cafeteria

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Taste tests are an integral part of Farm to School programming and an easy way for newer schools to jump into FTS while making some “3 C’s” connections (classroom, cafeteria, and community). Guilford Central School has been at it for a while and their FTS Coordinator, Sarah Rosow, works with each grade to make dishes for the rest of the school to sample. Back in October—before there was 2 feet of snow on the ground—I joined Sarah and a group of fourth-graders to harvest some kale for their monthly taste test. 

Sarah and two fourth graders cleaning a bed in preparation for winter.

Sarah and two fourth graders cleaning a bed in preparation for winter.

I met the group in front of the school in their vegetable garden. As it was nearing the end of the season, many of the beds were cleared out. But there was still plenty of kale and this was one of the last harvests of the season. Students collected bunches of curly and dinosaur kale that all went into the salad spinner. Back in the classroom, some students washed the kale while others prepped the other ingredients that would go into the pesto recipe. Guilford is lucky to have a Farm to School classroom (a repurposed science classroom) that gives students more space to work and store their projects, making the preparation of the taste tests a bit easier. But, all that is really needed is a clear working surface and some kitchen utensils for students. 

The Farm to School classroom at Guilford Central School.

The Farm to School classroom at Guilford Central School.

The finished product before mixing with pasta for the taste tests.

The finished product before mixing with pasta for the taste tests.

During the taste test preparations, students were not only learning about growing vegetables but also building culinary skills as they read the recipe and washed and chopped the ingredients. The last step was to combine everything in a food processor and taste the end product themselves before bringing samples to each of the school’s classrooms.  

Ideally—once all the students get a chance to taste the pesto—the next step is to coordinate with the school kitchen to get the new item on the menu. That way, students will already be familiar with the dish and there will be excitement stemming from the student involvement. 

Interested in starting taste tests in your school? Check out these resources to get started:

Food Connects HOM page- links to both VT and NH HOM materials

VT HOM Facebook page

HOM Calendars (contact Conor for a copy)

By Conor Floyd

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Scaffolding Sustainability Education in the Classroom: NewBrook’s Ladder of Responsibility 

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How can we teach about large-scale problems—such as climate change—without discouraging students? This question vexes many educators as climate change and sustainability become a more integral part of classroom curriculums. Climate change is a big problem, and our initial instinct may be to lay out all the facts and urgency to our students. Not so fast though, if we only arm our students with the knowledge without also building their capacity to act, we may be discouraging future positive actions to address these important problems.

David Sobel, Director of Certificate Programs at Antioch University New England, has a solution to this dilemma—what he calls a Ladder of Environmental Responsibility. The purpose of this tool is to provide students with concrete tasks which demonstrate that their behaviors can have a positive impact on the environment. These tasks should gradually become more difficult as students move through the grades, be tied in with the existing curriculum, and provide students with nature experiences that help connect them to the environment.

sobel ladder of responisibility.png

As a part of a recent grant from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food & Markets, Newbrook Elementary’s faculty came together last year to design their own Ladder of Responsibility. They were able to take the principles laid out by Sobel and adapt them to the specific context of their school. Now, Sam Kilmurray, NewBrook’s Garden Educator, is using the ladder as a framework for her Farm to School education. 

In addition to a host of shared tasks, there is now a specific track for students as they move from grade-to-grade. For example, Kindergarten is in charge of the pollinator garden, second grade learns about medinicial gardening, and fifth graders are the school’s waste stewards. Not only does this scaffold environmental education for students, but it can also help teachers incorporate Farm to School education—which for some may feel intimidatingly broad—into their classroom curriculum by providing a defined list of tasks for students to participate in. 

The Ladder of Environmental Responsibility can easily be adapted to fit within your school’s Farm to School program, provide clarity to your curriculum, and—most importantly—help students grow into empowered environmental stewards. If you’re looking for help to develop a Ladder of Environmental Responsibility for your school, feel free to contact Conor, conor@foodconnects.org. 

Student investigates the classroom worm bin. There are six bins in classrooms throughout the school which are a part of the 5th grader’s waste stewardship responsibilities.

Student investigates the classroom worm bin. There are six bins in classrooms throughout the school which are a part of the 5th grader’s waste stewardship responsibilities.

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Lessons from Chef Dan Giusti

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Last month our Farm to School team had the pleasure of attending the annual meeting of the School Nutrition Association of Vermont. The meeting was held in Colchester and attended by Child Nutrition Professionals from all over the state with the shared vision that “feeding all children is recognized as an integral part of education ensuring all children will learn, thrive, and succeed.”

Chef Dan Giusti speaking at the SNA annual meeting.

Chef Dan Giusti speaking at the SNA annual meeting.

The keynote was given by Chef Dan Giusti, former head chef of the world-renowned restaurant Noma in Copenhagen and founder of Brigaid, a non-profit organization that is challenging the school food status quo by putting professional chefs into public schools to cook fresh, wholesome food from scratch.

Listening to Chef Dan speak about the challenges of bringing scratch cooking to schools in New London, CT and the Bronx was incredibly inspiring. After 4 years of working to transform school meals, he is incredibly humble and spoke with clear honesty about the challenges faced by Child Nutrition Professionals in school kitchens around our country, and the deep respect he has for this profession, which he says is way more difficult than working as a chef in a restaurant. In his words, being a Food Service Director is “an amazing career because it’s super challenging and it’s super complex...there is so much stuff to comprehend. When you are a chef in a restaurant, it’s super easy. The chefs who work for me now (in the schools) are really intelligent, they have great character, they are patient, they are smart… because they have to be! You have to be at a different level to handle all this, to manage all these different groups of people, to understand, to even be able to comprehend all this information. It’s super complicated.”

Harley Sterling, School Nutrition Director for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union, speaks at the SNA annual meeting.

Harley Sterling, School Nutrition Director for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union, speaks at the SNA annual meeting.

Chef Dan has found that building relationships with the students is a key component to doing the job well. “Where we have found the most success by far is just talking to the kids, just sitting down. It’s all about the relationship, and it might have nothing to do with the food, but if they know that you have something to do with the food and they like you, that’s usually a good starting point.”

When you listen to the students, sometimes they say things that are hard to hear. “It’s a hard thing when you are taking orders from a 4 year old. And they are basically telling you this isn’t very good, and they’re right.”

Chef Dan has ambitious ideas for transforming school meals in our country, saying that, school meals “just need to be better. The kids deserve way better. Things can always be better.” He visited Burlington High School's cafeteria and was very impressed with the role that Vermont Food Service Directors are taking by improving the quality of the food in the meal program and sourcing as much local product as possible.

Bravo, Vermont!

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What’s Cooking at Green Street School?

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Thanks to grant funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, students at Green Street School will have many more opportunities to learn to cook in their classrooms and after school activities this school year.

Food Connects supported Green Street School in purchasing and fully outfitting a cooking cart, which is a rolling kitchen island stocked with all the equipment needed to successfully cook with students in the classroom. The cart has a food processor, electric griddle, two-burner hotplate, immersion blender, convection oven, and all the pots, pans, and utensils needed to prepare and sample healthy recipes.

Kelly Shifflette’s 4th graders were the first class to test out the cart, which will be used by all grade levels throughout the year with support from Green Street’s garden coordinator, Tara Gordon. They made a potato kale soup with fresh herbs from the school garden. Ms. Shifflette says that the soup “was delicious and we shared it with the whole staff. Using the cooking cart in my classroom was great and the students learned how to use knives safely.”

What delicious offerings will the students cook up next?

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Cafeterias Unknown: Central Elementary

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Shortly after I started working at Food Connects last month, I saw “Cafeteria’s Unknown” pop-up on my list of projects. After a quick explanation, I was drawn right into the project. Eat a meal at each of the over 25 schools Food Connects works with? Not only could I share all the amazing things taking place in cafeterias with our community, but it was a great way for me to get to know all the schools I’m working with. 

Breakfast after the Bell, salad bars, Universal Meals, new menu items, local ingredients—there’s a lot happening in our schools’ cafeterias. I’m excited to get the inside scoop on it all while also trying some delicious food.

-Conor 

A student and I weigh our options at the new salad bar Harley built over the summer.

A student and I weigh our options at the new salad bar Harley built over the summer.

Visit any of the cafeterias in the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union and you’ll notice a lot of changes. Last year, Harley Sterling took over as the district’s Food Service Director and transitioned the district to independently operated cafeterias. It’s Harley’s goal to get more local food on the menu, better support his staff, and increase meal quality district-wide. 

Earlier this month, we visited Central Elementary in Bellows Falls. Sheila, Food Connects’ Farm to School Program Coordinator, made the trip with me to share a meal and introduce me to Harley. While he was tied-up at another school, we snuck into the line in between 3rd and 2nd grade. We got our trays and headed for the entrees—chicken patties and roasted potatoes. At the salad bar, there was a wide selection of leafy greens, fresh veggies, and protein-packed sides. 

With loaded trays, Sheila and I grabbed our seats in the middle of a table and immediately started talking food with our new 3rd grade friends. Owen and a few of his friends shared with us their favorite foods—there were many chicken patty fans. Owen was a strong proponent of Taco Day. Just as we were getting into the finer details of the salad bar, Harley arrived. 

Luckily, Sheila remembered to snap a photo of my lunch before I dug in. It looks like I’ll need to work on my presentation during my next lunch photo shoot.

Luckily, Sheila remembered to snap a photo of my lunch before I dug in. It looks like I’ll need to work on my presentation during my next lunch photo shoot.

Harley spends most of his time in the Central Elementary cafeteria. As we ate, he explained the balance he’s trying to strike between filling the menu with new, healthier foods and making sure kids still eat lunch. My lunch tray stood as the perfect example: chicken patty may not be the healthiest protein option there is, but it’s a familiar item that most kids like. From there, students can start trying new items at their own pace. My salad was topped with fresh, crisp red peppers and tofu. The Asian rice salad was new to me and delicious as well. Harley and his team have been working hard to build the trust with their students so that participation stays high as they introduce new items in the cafeteria. 

Harley and Erica, the School Nutrition Site Manager, holding up a banner Sheila and I dropped off.

Harley and Erica, the School Nutrition Site Manager, holding up a banner Sheila and I dropped off.

And, it looks like it’s working! As we spoke, a girl next to us was eating her way through a small pile of peppers. Harley explained that many foods we may not think of as new or exotic are foreign to some students. “Tacos,” Harley said, “are one of those foods that have required a reintroduction for some students.” At the mention of his favorite lunch, Owen’s eyes lit up and he reminds me that tacos are his favorite. 

Before we can dive back into our conversation, it’s time for a quick birthday celebration and then lunch is over—I forgot how short school lunch is!