Celebrating West River Education District's Jake Gallogly for Innovation and Advocacy in School Meals

Jake Gallogly Food Service Manager at West River Education District and Chef Ann Cooper

We're thrilled to hear that Jake Gallogly, Food Service Manager at West River Education District (WRED), has won the 2024 Innovation & Advocacy Award from the School Nutrition Association of Vermont and Hunger Free Vermont! Jake's outstanding work embodies the essence of our Farm to School program and its mission to change the food landscape in our schools.

Jake's Mission: Healthy Food, Engaged Students

Jake took over WRED's school nutrition program with two clear goals—improve food quality and increase student access. In just two years, his dedication has transformed the program into a model for innovation, student engagement, and, most importantly, healthy, delicious meals.

From Scratch Cooking to Local Farms

With initiatives like securing the Chef Ann Foundation's Get Cooking grant, Jake has made scratch cooking a cornerstone of the school's meals. He even invites chefs from WRED elementary schools to use Leland & Gray's facilities, spreading the benefits of homemade food within the district. Local, fresh ingredients take center stage, fueled by sourcing from Food Connects and direct partnerships with neighboring farms—most notably, organic milk from Miller Farm.

Summer Meals and School Gardens

Jake understands how food security extends beyond the school day. His successful summer meals program provided crucial nutrition for students, highlighting the importance of year-round access to healthy food. His role on the school's Farm to School team and advocacy for district-wide programming demonstrate his commitment to food education. He was instrumental in the creation of a school garden last year, and plans for a greenhouse promise even more fresh produce and student involvement. It's a testament to Jake's dedication that students learn not only where their food comes from, but can have a hand in growing it.

Advocacy Beyond the Kitchen

Jake isn't stopping within the school walls. He's actively testified before the Vermont Legislature about the importance of Farm to School programs, becoming a vital voice for food policy. He shares his expertise and enthusiasm with colleagues across the state, inspiring others to take similar steps to transform their own school meal programs.

Why We Celebrate Jake

We deeply admire Jake's passion and innovation. The benefits of nutritious, locally sourced foods are immeasurable for our children. Jake's work isn't just about better lunches; it's about healthier, more informed students, a stronger regional food system, and a genuine community connection to the food on their plates.

Join us in Congratulating Jake!

Please join us in offering huge congratulations to Jake Gallogly on this well-deserved recognition! His hard work reminds us that positive change is possible, one meal, one garden, and one passionate individual at a time.

Learn More and Take Action:

Let's all support the changemakers like Jake who are creating a better future for Vermont's students!

A Day in the Life of the Leland and Gray Kitchen - Student Submitted Article

As a high school student, it’s easy to grab food from the cafeteria without thinking too much about who made it or how it got there. However, Leland and Gray senior Soob Soobitsky decided to delve deeper, going beyond the dishes on the lunch tray to the dedicated kitchen staff who prepare meals daily.

Soob wrote this article as part of school journalism class, with the final version finding its way to the school newspaper. Jake Gallogly, featured in this article is in his second year heading up Leland and Gray’s kitchen, in addition to being Windham Central Supervisory Union’s food service manager, Jake is always looking for new ways to incorporate local foods into the school district’s kitchens.


A Day in the Life of the Leland and Gray Kitchen, by Soob Soobitsky

TOWNSHEND, VT- Everybody walks in the kitchen, grabs their food and leaves. But nobody wonders where the food they are eating comes from and how it leads up to being served. Well, you’re about to find out.

Working all day in a school kitchen is different than working in a restaurant kitchen. There are three main people who work in the L&G kitchen: Heather Garland runs the cash register and helps prep, Jake Gallogly is the head chef, and Joy Kondracki is Jake’s main helper and backup. Luara Lee Martin is the Deli runner, and Lou Dauchy helps prep foods for lunch and breakfast. 

Breakfast starts off with the kitchen staff putting out all the quick foods, including coffee, yogurt, granola bars, and sandwiches. Breakfast used to end later in the day but now ends at exactly 8:30 AM. 

Around 9:00 AM, after breakfast is cleaned up, the staff starts lunch prep. This involves cutting everything up for the salad bar, including fruits and vegetables, and making deli sandwiches and PB&Js. The kitchen staff has to watch out for dietary restrictions. Some students are gluten-free, some are lactose intolerant, and some are vegetarians, so there are many different kinds of food they have to make. 

Almost all the food students eat at school are locally grown or made from scratch. Heather single-handedly makes all the pizzas everyday with her own hands, but many believe they are frozen pizzas. The dough and all is made from scratch. Heather starts making the pizzas around 10:00 AM so they are ready and warm by lunch. A few local places the school gets frood from are Maple Brook Farm, Harlow Farm, and Leaping Bear Farm. For milk, they recently switched to local Miller Farm a local organic dairy that’s 20 miles down the road in Vernon, VT. “It almost costs the same for us to use bulk milk as carton milk, because students use less of the bulk milk and waste way more carton milk,” said Jake Gallogly. 

The food director has a list of meals he makes for lunch and tends to rotate them around so they aren’t being served too much in a month. He also uses leftover food to prevent the waste of food.

Even though they have to make all this food for our school, they also have to make food for other local elementary schools including Jamaica and Windham. They also need a driver to drive the food to those schools. Dorthy Fontaine is new to Leland and Gray and is getting trained to be the cook at Jamaica Elementary School.

Laura Lee Martin, the deli runner, comes up with all of the deli options on her own, she uses resources that she has learned in past jobs to help with that. “I watch a lot of Food Network and I get a lot of ideas that way. Then I sit here and I figure out what we have or what don’t and I try to put combinations together. If that doesn’t work I go back to my roots at St. Brigid’s Kitchen in Brattleboro where I learned how to make do with whatever we had in donations.”

Although each of the L&J staff has specific roles, they all take turns doing what has to be done. Everyone has a job to clean when there is spare time in the kitchen. The kitchen has a very good organizational system. Everything has its own certain spot and when they don’t have something they need, they can borrow it from a different school.

The kitchen staff tries to clean up as soon as the students leave the room they can get out around 1:30-2:00 PM and cleanup takes about an hour and a half.

Lunchtime can get pretty chaotic, so they have a few methods on how to keep kids intact during lunch. There is always an assigned teacher to stand up in the upper cafeteria part and other teachers in the lower part. If students are still misbehaving they will be asked to not have lunch in the upper part for a minimum of two weeks. They try to have all kids pick up after themselves because that is not part of their job. Jake said, “Luckily we have a lot of hands this year which makes it easier.”

The kitchen staff doesn’t mind taking turns doing what has to be done. “When it comes to daily duties we do try to switch it up because its more fun and gets really boring if you do the same thing every day” said Jake. The head chef’s favorite part of his job is the community. “I like the fact that I’m able to work in the community that I live in and support students and adults that live around me.” working in the kitchen is not all about making the food and cleaning up. The main part about a school kitchen job is the community in it.” Heather said, “I like being able to see the kids change through the years, so its not just about cooking food and serving food. It’s about connecting with the kids.”

Soob will be able to further pursue their interest in where food comes from and how it’s prepared by participating in this year’s Journey Away semester program. In Journey Away, which evolved from Leland and Gray’s pre-pandemic Journey East program, students explore food systems and culture in Vermont as well as through several weeks spent traveling and learning in New Orleans, France and Vietnam. The program focuses on interfacing with farms, businesses, and other community members as a mode of learning and students earn math, social studies, natural history and English credit in the process.

Food Connects’ Farm to School coaches work closely with Leland and Gray’s Farm to School Team, which is tightly linked with the emerging and exciting Journey Away program. 

Food Connects expanding Trauma-Informed Training through BlueCross BlueShield Grant

Farm to School Coach, Sheila Humphreys.

Food Connects has been awarded the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont Caring for Children grant. This grant facilitates the launch of the Food Connects Trauma-Informed Farm to School Teacher Training Project, marking a significant advancement in the intersection of trauma, education, and nutrition.

Building upon a successful professional development series, this new project, spearheaded by Farm to School Coach Sheila Humphreys, focuses on developing and piloting workshops for elementary school teachers. These workshops are designed to explore the crucial links between trauma and food, particularly in school environments. Emphasizing curriculum development, the project empowers educators to integrate a trauma-and-food-sensitive lens into their lesson plans.

"We are thrilled to receive this support from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont Caring for Children Foundation. It allows us to deepen our impact in schools and supports our commitment to both education and health," said Kris Nelson, the Food Connects Farm to School Program Manager. "By helping teachers develop these tools, we're creating a more supportive and understanding environment for students facing food-related trauma."

The grant enhances Food Connects' capability to reach a broader educator audience, impacting approximately 3,175 elementary students across four school districts in Southern Vermont, including the Springfield School District, Windham Southeast Supervisory Union, Windham Central Supervisory Union, and Windham Northeast Supervisory Union. Additionally, it aligns with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Vermont Caring for Children Foundation's priorities of ensuring access to healthy food and nutrition, promoting early childhood development, and addressing mental health.

Food Connects, with its mission to cultivate healthy food and farm connections in classrooms, cafeterias, and communities, has been a leader in the Farm to School movement in Vermont. This project further cements its role in transforming local food systems and enhancing educational practices.

The Trauma-Informed Farm to School Teacher Training Project is part of Food Connects' comprehensive Farm to School program, supported by a blend of foundation grants, state and local funding, corporate sponsors, individual donors, and organizational fundraising.

Integrating Gardening and Cooking into Classroom Learning at Green Street School

I don’t know about you - but we’re pretty big believers that some of the best-tasting tomatoes and peppers are the ones you grow yourself. 

Farm to School coaches Sheila and Katie were happy to see 4th grade students at Green Street School in Brattleboro learn this firsthand at a recent pizza-making event. The pizza featured tomato sauce made by students with tomatoes, peppers, and herbs harvested from the school garden and greenhouse. 

School Garden Coordinator Tara Gordon and French teacher Alice Charkes have been instrumental in this initiative.  Under Tara's guidance, 3rd graders engaged in harvesting tomatoes, green peppers, and various herbs like oregano, sage, lemon balm, and rosemary from the school's garden and greenhouse. 

Simultaneously, Alice's 4th-grade class was immersed in learning French vocabulary related to pizza, including words like 'fromage' (cheese), 'sauce tomate' (tomato sauce), and 'champignon' (mushroom). This linguistic journey culminated in a practical cooking session where each student crafted their mini pizza. 

They started from scratch, mixing ingredients: yeast, oil, sugar, flour, and water to create a delicious homemade dough. Toppings included cheese, the tomato sauce made by the 3rd graders, and fresh oyster mushrooms grown in the school garden. The activity concluded with baking the pizzas and enjoying the fruits of their labor, marked by a collective 'bon appétit'.

This project at Green Street School exemplifies an effective blend of practical skills and academic learning, providing students with a holistic educational experience that extends beyond traditional classroom boundaries.

It's inspiring to witness students forging meaningful connections between the food they eat and how it’s grown.