Celebrating Harvest Dinners Across our Region

Fresh flatbread baked in a pizza oven. A banquet of soups and salads created by students, teachers, and families, many with ingredients sourced from school gardens. Turkey dinner with all the fixings. Some Vermont schools have been celebrating Harvest Dinners together for many years; others are just getting started. Each dinner is unique, as particular as the school and the community of which it is a part. Not only do Harvest Dinners bring families together for a delicious home (or school) cooked meal and lots of noise and fun. It is also one of the times during the school year when students welcome their families into their world at school - and this time to feed them! How cool is that? 

This year the Farm to School team had the pleasure of participating in Harvest Dinners at schools in Windham Southeast, Windham Central, and Windham Northeast, and at Winston Prouty Early Learning Center. Scenes from the gatherings, as well as the hours of preparations from the students and teachers, are below.

Oak Grove

There were over 170 people attending Oak Grove’s dinner this year, which is the largest turnout for this event since 2019. Some of the dishes prepared by Garden Coordinator Katrina Moore and her students with ingredients harvested from the new garden beds this year included: herbed butter, arugula salad, and fresh pasta with garden herbs.

Saxtons River 

This year Saxtons River celebrated a Harvest Dinner together for the first time, holding the dinner during the school day. Linda Kinney, the School Nutrition Site Manager, cooked up a traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the fixings - and Melissa Bacon, BFHS School Nutrition Site Manager, was able to help out, too. Parents joined their kids in the cafeteria, and even learned how to properly dispose of their waste in the compost bins and replace their reusable trays in a stack when they were done.

NewBrook

This year NewBrook Elementary again held a silent auction during their Harvest Dinner, with a table full of local crafts and products. They also included a scavenger hunt bingo game, with a tempting basket of really cool erasers as prizes. Another new addition this year was the team of Leland and Gray High School students serving soup!

Central

This was Central Elementary’s second Harvest Dinner. Since the dinner was held in October and the weather was holding, families came prepared with picnic blankets and stayed a long while. Highlights were the full array of yummy soups prepared by the students and flatbread straight from the pizza oven. A new addition this year was planting daffodils in the school courtyard.

Winston Prouty 

Winston Prouty celebrated their Harvest Dinner on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. When Early Learning Center Director, Honor Woodrow, asked the children what they needed to set the table, one girl exclaimed: “We need spoons and healthy food!” The children helped make the macaroni and cheese from scratch, made wavy-cut vegetables for the stone soup, and set the tables. Everyone enjoyed a delicious meal and finished it off with banana bread.

A Taste of Culture: Chinese Cooking 101 at Brattleboro Area Middle School

Ms. Gao’s Chinese Cooking 101 provides Brattleboro Area Middle School students with an opportunity to learn life skills while getting exposed to a new culture. Ping Gao has a holistic approach to teaching. In her Chinese Culture Class, the curriculum covers the expected topics of Chinese language, history, geography, and culture. However, Ms. Gao is also invested in the emotional and social growth of her students. 

This is why, every week, she offers multiple opportunities to cook Chinese food in her classroom.  “I pick dishes that are really fast and easy to make, with ingredients that don’t cost a lot,” says Ms. Gao. Her goal is to give students the life skills needed to take care of themselves. 

Almost all the students I interviewed had used Ms. Gao’s fried rice recipe at home, and some had even made dumplings with their families. She picks recipes that are easy, fast, inexpensive, and healthy. In this case, by healthy we mean they contain unprocessed ingredients like chopped cucumbers, cilantro, and homemade wheat flour noodles. 

The homemade noodles take about 5 minutes to mix together; then, students fling and snap the dough into unfussy hand-pulled noodles. 7th and 8th grade girls chopped cucumber, cilantro, garlic and scallions. Meanwhile, two 8th grade boys boiled the noodles and scrambled eggs in a pan. Kids gathered around the table as Ms. Gao threw (literally) the ingredients into a bowl, poured on some hot oil, and mixed. 

“It smells soooo good!” spontaneously commented several students, as the hot oil hit the garlic and scallions. Students went back for seconds and thirds of the noodles. When I asked students why they would take a Chinese class, most answered “the food!”

This is an excellent exposure to diversity. Not only exposure to different cultures and the ideas that come with it (we watched a YouTube clip on the “story” behind the Biang Biang noodle). It is also exposure to new types of food. I heard a few students say they wanted to try a little bit of the spicy noodles. It’s much easier to try a bite of something spicy when it's offered in class, than when you’re ordering a whole dish of it at a Chinese restaurant. 

Speaking of which, not many Chinese restaurants in Brattleboro offer the kinds of entrees that Ms. Gao serves up.  The students told me the menus they usually see in Chinese restaurants do not serve the kinds of dishes they cook in Ms. Gao’s class. Only the dumplings and fried rice overlap. All the other dishes are things you can’t necessarily access in Brattleboro. This class is a one-of-a-kind experience that you truly can’t get anywhere else in town.

Written by Adelaide Petrov-Yoo

Community, Tradition, and Gratitude with BUHS Students

What does Thanksgiving mean for a group of Vermont teenagers? For Bianca Fernandez, Thanksgiving this year meant an opportunity to expose students to ideas of making, giving, and learning about where our food comes from. These topics feed into the larger concept of “being a good citizen in your community”. Bianca is an SEA services instructor at Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS), helping to administer the YEA (Youth Empowering Agriculture) program. This program administers experiential learning in the subject of agriculture and food systems professions.

First, students learned about origins. 

A guest speaker, Jill Adams, visited the high school and spoke about Abenaki food traditions. 

Jill cooked local food, like squash and fiddleheads, and connected it to Abenaki traditions like the Three Sisters and seed preservation. This, tied in with some upcoming lessons on Indian Boarding Schools, is a pathway for high school students to think about the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday, about how culture relates to food and the land that we are living on. Without this land and these traditions, we could not grow the food for our Thanksgiving meal. 

Next, students learned about the skills needed to pull off a community event. 

Students boarded a bus bound for Lisai’s Market, a fourth generation family-operated grocery store and a centerpiece of Bellows Falls. Here, after buying ingredients for the day’s feast, the BUHS students interviewed the cashiers, learning about the realities of working in the “market” part of a Vermont food system. 

We packed our ingredients onto the bus and drove to Westminster’s Butterfield Institute. In this community gathering space, students rotated between three learning stations. 

Station A, the best-smelling station, prepared turkey soup from scratch. Students learned safe knife-handling, herb-identification, and soup and salad-making. 

Station B, the most artistic station, handcrafted wreaths and decoupaged candle holders from mason jars. Students used locally harvested pine boughs and learned to identify Pussy Willow, Lunaria (Silver Dollar Plant), and Chinese Lantern flowers as they twined these plants into their wreaths. 

Station C gave students an opportunity to learn about community service and giving. Here, students baked apple crumble and pumpkin bread from scratch for donation to Westminster Center School families.  BUHS high schoolers handed off the baked goods to Westminster Center School third graders, creating a beautiful moment of big-sibling, inter-age interaction.

Finally, illuminated by the setting winter sun, 17 students from BUHS sat around a table almost as long as a basketball court. Down the center ran a row of wreaths and candle holders, both carefully crafted by students. In front of each student was a plate of salad, turkey stone soup, and sides. The sweetest part was, before digging in, hearing the students say what they were thankful for. Alongside gratitude for family members and loved ones, a majority of the students said they were thankful for “all you guys” in the SEA program with them. A moment of peace and reflection, giving acknowledgement to the supportive, loving community created within the SEA program.

Written by Adelaide Petrov-Yoo






Continuing the Legacy: Kelsy Allan Inspires in the Academy School Garden

The garden at Academy School has long been a vibrant hub of growth, discovery, and community. This year, it continues to blossom under the guidance of its new Garden Coordinator, Kelsy Allan. 

With her boundless enthusiasm and deep connection to the outdoors, Kelsy has quickly become a beloved figure among students and staff alike. From prepping lessons to leading hands-on activities, she is cultivating a love for nature and food that will leave a lasting impression.

Students are naturally drawn to Kelsy’s bubbly personality and adventurous spirit. Whether they’re sampling fresh basil or digging in the dirt, she meets them with infectious energy and encouragement. 

One student’s delight during a recent taste test—“Mmm, I need pesto in my garden...I mean basil!”—perfectly captures the excitement she brings to the garden. With a warm smile, Kelsy responds, “I knew what you meant,” embodying the kind of playful, supportive mentorship that makes learning fun.

Kelsy stepped into a role previously held by Kathy Cassin, whose supportive presence still graces the garden. 

As a familiar face to many returning students, Kathy often volunteers her time to support Kelsy in her FTS activities. Together they greet excited children flocking over from their recess and offer gentle guidance to the many tiny chefs as they craft a recipe using seasonal foods. Together, they’ve fostered a culture where cooking is an adventure, and trying new foods is an exciting part of the journey.

One recent recess cookoff showcased the magic of Academy’s FTS programing. The cooking stations buzzed with excitement as Kelsy led students at recess through making applesauce in one area and while a class pressed cider around the corner. 

When the cider press broke mid-activity, she quickly improvised, rigging a solution with cheesecloth and an upbeat attitude. “Try that!” said Kelsy, securing the cheesecloth in place. 

Back at the applesauce station, students took turns chopping and cooking apples. Kathy, ever supportive, peeled apples with practiced ease, while Kelsy dashed between stations, ensuring every student had a chance to contribute.

The sight of this tiny, mobile kitchen crew—armed with child-safe choppers and wide grins—is now a cherished staple of Academy recess. 

Kelsy has embraced the school’s endowed FTS culture, bringing fresh energy and creativity to its traditions. Outdoor cooking, a favorite activity, continues to thrive under her leadership. Her dream of cooking with students year-round, gathered around fires and savoring meals they’ve grown, is already taking root.

When considering her own mark on the program, she envisions extending environmental learning beyond the garden, incorporating the surrounding woodlot and introducing students to wildcrafting and creative uses for invasive plants—like eating them! 

This broader approach reflects her foundation in experiential learning, where students explore food and nature in playful, meaningful ways. “I want them to see food as something fun and a choice,” she explains. “It’s not just about eating healthy; it’s about enjoying the whole process.”

Kelsy’s hands-on, can-do attitude inspires students to dive into projects with gusto. Whether they’re stirring a pot of applesauce or pressing cider, they’re learning valuable lessons about teamwork, creativity, and resilience. And with the ongoing support of a terrific team, Kelsy is building on a legacy of nurturing young minds through the power of nature.

As the seasons change and the garden continues to grow, so too will the students who are lucky enough to learn from Kelsy. Under her care, the Academy School garden remains a cherished space of joy, discovery, and connection—a place where seeds of curiosity are planted, and lifelong passions for food and nature are nurtured.

Harvest Fun: Winston Prouty ELC's Field Trip to Wild Carrot Farm

At the end of October, students, teachers, and families from Winston Prouty’s Early Learning Center (ELC) had the opportunity to visit Wild Carrot Farm for a field trip. This farm was selected for a visit because the ELC has been enjoying fresh produce weekly from the farm all season thanks to a Farm to School and Early Childhood Community Supported Agriculture grant from Vermont’s Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets (VAAFM). 

The children enjoyed a variety of fresh seasonal produce to snack on each week from June through October. Their teacher, Nora Harrington says, “one highlight was when we made fennel straws. The big stalks are so stiff that you can actually drink water through them and the children thought that was really fun.” The students really love carrots, and they made a carrot and vegetable stew for their harvest meal in November. They also have some popcorn from the farm that is still on the cob and they plan to make popcorn soon.

At the farm, activities included horse-drawn hayrides, visits with farm animals, and an exploration of the farm's greenhouse. Students aged 2-4 described the field trip in their own words, saying, 

  • “I saw horses at the farm!” 

  • “They were brown and black.”

  • “I really liked going on the field ride with the horses.”

  • “And we even gave them carrots!”

  • “There was even a trampoline and a little play structure.”

Teacher Nora shared her favorite part of the field trip, saying, “We picked these GIANT carrots and then we fed them to the horses.  We fed them SO MANY carrots! And I ate some too.”
The field trip was supported by the Winston Prouty Farm to School team and funded by a Strengthening Families grant from the Vermont Department for Children and Families.

Farm to School Regional Gathering at Braintree Elementary

Braintree Elementary was the perfect setting for my first VT FTS regional gathering. The school was bright and inviting, set on a small hill several rolling miles across sprawling farmlands from the more thickly settled town of Randolf. The school itself was impressive and full of life despite being after hours.  We were greeted and welcomed by staff and students, both very proud to share their space and what Farm to School means to them at Braintree Elementary. I was especially impressed by the two students who took the time to present in front of a room full of adults on why they love their school and how much they enjoy their time in the garden. Braintree blossoms was the name given for their farm to school club; a collection of all ages, learning through mentorship, where students work their gardens to learn, harvest and even sell a little produce to the local community. 

Special thanks to Misse Axelrod and Dana Hudson for facilitating the gathering and curating an fun, intimate and productive workshop for us all to enjoy. This setting was particularly helpful for understanding the specific challenges and inner workings of various programs within the central region and provided a space for great minds to problem solve and celebrate all the hard work that’s being done. It also gave me a great opportunity to share what we are doing at Food Connects around Harvest of the Month, as well as some clarity as to how we can best support educators going forward. After all was said and done, we parted ways feeling inspired to continue elevating Farm to School education across the state.

- Devan Monette, Harvest of the Month Program Manager

What’s New at Grafton Elementary-Updates from Grafton FTS Committee 

The Farm to School Committee at Grafton Elementary School worked closely with Food Connects to enhance our garden program last year. With the generous support of the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union and the Windham Foundation, we were able to build six large raised beds for vegetables, and four smaller raised beds for our pollinator garden.

Parents, staff, and students worked hard to assemble the beds and plant starts, seeds, and perennials. Many of the flower and vegetable starts had been grown inside the school. In addition to learning about plant and seed anatomy, and pollination, students learned about what seeds need to grow. Over the summer, the beds were tended by two GES families. Despite some typical gardening challenges such as too much rain, and in our case, one very pesky woodchuck, our gardens flourished! As most gardeners do, we lost some crops, mainly corn and sunflowers.(Mostly to the woodchuck.) But the ones eschewed by the woodchuck were happily harvested this fall and made into a fragrant and colorful harvest soup by the entire student body.

Our soup was full of carrots, potatoes, and squash, leaving us enough squash for our upcoming Thanksgiving feast, and enough potatoes to make latkes for all in December. Our beets will be pickled this week. It has been exciting and fun for the students to have a hand in providing the school food they have started from seed and tended along the way.

We are looking forward to next year! And now we are a little more educated about what can be the most successful, namely woodchuck-resistant, in our gardens. Perhaps we’ll skip the corn and kale, opting for onions and peppers. And we’re planting garlic this week! We are full of hope that next year’s gardens will yield an even better harvest for our 2nd Annual GES Harvest Soup.

- Vanessa Stern

What is Farm to School?

What is farm to school? Why is it important? I’m a Farm to School coach, new to the field, and sometimes it's tempting to explain my job with the short fragment, “I help connect local agriculture with local schools.” But that doesn’t capture the radical, existentially crucial work that is done under the Farm to School umbrella. October is Farm to School month, so it’s a good time to review, “what is this Farm to School movement?”  

To find out the answer, I attended a webinar on careers in the US food system. My ears perked up when I heard a young woman say, “my high school cafeteria was doing Farm to School before that was a national movement.” Did Farm to School influence her decision to work in Indiana’s State Department of Agriculture? Rachel, the young woman, generously told me about her journey from Farm to School student to professional Food Distribution Manager. The main star of the story was Becky Landes, the Food Service Director at Manchester Community Schools in Indiana.  Becky has been buying her beef and vegetables directly from local farmers for 20 years now. A pioneer of the movement, she says she does it for two reasons. 

First, she lives in a rural, agricultural community in northern Indiana. The school is surrounded by farms, tall corn and short soybeans. Kids from these farms go to Becky’s school and eat the entrees she cooks up 180 days of the year. She feeds the kids and she is also helping those families' businesses thrive. “In a rural and farming community, when we support each other it helps us survive as a community,” Becky reflected. Thinking back to covid shut-downs, she could drive down the street to pick up meat and veggies when global supply chains stumbled to a halt. Keeping local farms in business means that these families can continue to serve our communities. Community means you help each other survive and grow. And who wouldn’t want help with that? 

Second, in keeping with a key tenet of the Farm to School movement, Becky sees the cafeteria as a classroom. Here, you’ll find clanging trays and shouts of kids finally letting loose after spending half the day “keeping a lid on it.” Quietly, in the background, the foundations for a lifetime of eating habits are forming, unnoticed by most. Chicken nuggets and pizza are great. But have you tried asparagus? Believe it or not, kids who balked at these “funny looking green beans” are now requesting she serves more asparagus. Exposing our kids to new foods does them a favor by giving them options. Becky offers the option of fruit-infused water. When kids ask what this is, it gives an opening to explain that, “this is a way to flavor water without adding a bunch of sugar to it.” This is new information. They can make different choices in the future with what they learn today. 

Last but not least, “if we can feed kids good food that they will eat, they will be more ready to sit in a classroom and learn.” If the food tastes good (and fresh food tastes really good), then a kid will be more likely to eat it. Anyone who has hurriedly chomped on a few bites of energy bar or cookie, hoping it would get them through the shift they’re running late for, knows that you’ll probably be feeling crabby and hungry soon. I know this from repeated, repeated experiences. (I am, unfortunately, one of those people who tends to run late.) So give the kids good food so they can study well and be less crabby!

One student who benefitted from Becky’s locally sourced lunches is Rachel Brandenburg, now a Food Distribution Manager at the Indiana State Department of Agriculture. Rachel fondly remembers the local-beef burgers and salad bar sparkling with heaped four-season spring mix and veggies. She piled the fresh lettuce, brightly colored peppers, and crisp carrots onto her plate. She recalls that the food was really good, and she didn’t realize other schools’ cafeteria food didn’t stimulate one’s appetite quite as well. 

In addition to enjoying her school cafeteria’s food (a claim that not many students can make), Rachel wrote a paper on Farm to School local purchasing in her senior year. In her environmental science class, students explored the connections between local farmers, food, and climate change. A connection that existed just a few hundred feet from her classroom was Becky Landes, her Food Service Director. Becky didn’t put up posters advertising that her food was local but, says Rachel, “I think that speaks to her genuine commitment to buying local food because she doesn't need it to be this big showy thing. She just needs to support the farms; the food is better and it lasts longer… it's the right thing to do.” 

Even though she works in local food today, at first Rachel didn’t stick around to her local roots. As most young people, she set out on a journey to carve her own identity, independent of her rural, agricultural background. “I thought people saw rural as being backwards” she reflects, “and I didn’t want people to think I was backwards.” So, she moved to the city and studied international economics. She planned to move to Germany. However, in college, Rachel was exposed to professors who encouraged her to see how her hometown community fit into the bigger picture. Using maps and sociology, Rachel investigated how rural communities like her own were impacted by commercial agriculture land use and climate change. 

Once she realized that the cultural story of her community was shaped by food systems, her own narrative shifted and she was in awe of the countless worlds that overlapped around food. These food systems impact her community’s health, mental health, economy, and social networks.  “Since our food system is so large scale, agriculture is like two different industries now,” Rachel observes. Farming is now split into “huge scale beef from Brazil, but on the other hand you have 100 acre farms that are still participating in direct-to-purchaser models with farmers markets or even with Farm to School.” Similarly, Farm to School programs like ours in southern Vermont help strengthen the ties between the school staff, students, and local farms so that both our students and our local businesses can grow stronger and more resilient. 

After over 10 years apart, Rachel and Becky have been reunited. They have a working relationship now within Indiana food systems. In her role with the Indiana State Department of Agriculture, Rachel asks Becky a lot about school regulations on food nutrition, and which local farm products may be a good fit for school cafeterias. “Becky is directly helping me in understanding market connections and how to get local food into schools because she is an expert.” She helps advise on “how we can better support Food Service Directors to continue purchasing locally.” Another way Becky supports the Farm to School movement in Indiana is by telling her story to legislators so they can continue to support FTS program efforts. Reflecting on her high school lunches, Rachel says, “Becky got me thinking about local food and where it comes from. She did such a good job, I didn't even know people wouldn’t prefer things to be sourced locally.” 

The work of Food Service Directors and the Farm to School teams that support them help keep the fire lit in the Farm to School movement so we can all have healthier kids, communities, and economies.

- Adelaide Petrov-Yoo

Saxtons River Elementary School Taste Test

Walking into the cafeteria, the first thing you see is larger-than-life-sized posters of the School Nutrition Site Manager, Linda Kinney, beaming over trays of food with her kitchen in the background. Then, looking down and to the right, a framed, shiny golden star hangs on the wall, proudly announcing “Local Food Champion: Serving over 25% Vermont food from Vermont farms.” Glimpsed through the doorway, Ms. Linda, as she is known to the students, puts the finishing touches on school lunch for today. 

Principal Laura Hazard addresses a group of students in the cafeteria. “On Morning Announcements, you all heard me say we were going to do a taste test today. Does anyone remember what we were going to try?” Forty three children, kindergarteners, 1st graders, and 2nd graders, shout back: “Applesauce!”

This is how Saxtons River Elementary School began its first taste test of 2024. Also called a Try (as in, “try this”), the taste tests have a friendly, relaxed energy. Watching the call and response, back and forth, between Principal Hazard and her students, I couldn’t help but smile. 

Principal Hazard asked questions about local apples and applesauce. “What colors can applesauce be? Do you add sugar? What might an apple sauce with green apples taste like? Have you ever made apple sauce at home?” She also added some fun facts. For example, did you know apples are a good source of vitamin C? 

Kids almost levitated off their seats, reaching their arms as high into the air as they could, hoping to get called on to answer these questions. Many students had made applesauce at home with their families. Eager to share their experiences and their knowledge, 6 and 7 year olds loudly announced stories of apple picking, funny colored apple sauce, and their favorite varieties of apple. Some nodded emphatically or exclaimed “ooh yeah!” as Principal Hazard named certain familiar-to-them apple varieties. Memories of fun times apple picking or cooking with their families floated into the cafeteria, filling the room with energy and excitement. 

Conjuring up images of fun times with their families while students ate food in their school cafeteria transformed the lunch experience. Kids were eating with smiles on their faces. Happy, sing-song voices shared apple-related stories with the classmates sitting next to them. 

Preparations for the Applesauce Try began long before the students entered the cafeteria. 

The summer before school began, Principal Hazard shared that she wanted to feature Vermont’s Harvest of the Month more prominently this year. Principal Hazard, Linda, and the Farm to School coach from Food Connects met a few times and planned a series of Tries. Each Try would feature the Harvest of the Month as a main ingredient. Making a little announcement, paired with a small sample of a new food, would give students an opportunity to try something new without committing to a whole tray-full of it. 

Principal Hazard knew that students would be more likely to try a new food if they were guided through the experience. Back when the cafeteria started serving new breakfast bars, no students ventured to eat them. Not knowing what was in them, or what they tasted like, students were hesitant to crack open the packaging. One day, Principal Hazard turned down the lights to get students’ attention, talked a bit about the breakfast bars, and then gave small samples for the students to try. After that, students started taking the bars! Imagine if we could do this for each vegetable and fruit featured in Vermont’s local Harvest of the Month program. 

This effort fits in a larger movement within WNESU to incorporate more local food, to the benefit of the students and local food producers. 

Unlike most school districts, Windham Northeast Supervisory Union schools serve local, bulk milk from Miller Farm in VT, a new collaboration with WNESU and NOFA Vermont. Not only does the soda-fountain style dispenser cut down on waste, but I have heard from multiple sources that the milk tastes amazing.  Each student, aged 5 - 7, skipped, shuffled, hopped, and twirled toward their lunch tables with a tall cup of local milk wobbling precariously on their tray. 

Local food, which has traveled less miles, helps Saxtons River’s lunch stand out. The food itself looks fresh and appetizing. Children walked out of the serving line carrying dark green trays with crisp-looking green beans; fluffy, bouncy crusted pizza; and juicy crescents of cantaloupe with the rind still on. No wonder Ms. Linda is so well-liked by the students. 

Before we handed out the little cups with yellow apple sauce, students turned toward Linda and in a chorus shouted, and I mean shouted, “Thank you, Ms. Linda!”  Principal Hazard reminded students, “Ms. Linda made this apple sauce herself, so that means it’s even better because we know she is such a good cook.” Riotous applause and admiration poured forth from the students (I’m not joking). They knew they were in for a treat. As students were lining up to clear off their trays, one student leaned over to me and whispered, “I ate it [the applesauce] slow, so that I could keep eating it.” 

During the lunch service, I turned to my coworker multiple times and said, “This is the best looking school lunch I’ve ever seen.” I have only been part of a Farm to School team for a few months, so I expect I will see many more appetizing school lunches in my future.  That’s a huge part of the Farm to School mission: making sure school lunches are local, fresh, and holistically good for the kids who are eating them. 

I’d like to end this article with a huge thank you to Ms. Linda and Principal Hazard for their work on Saxtons River Elementary School’s Harvest of the Month taste tests this year. 

- Adelaide Petrov-Yoo

Celebrating Amy Duffy: Cultivating Joy, Knowledge, and Connection Through Farm to School

Step into the garden at NewBrook Elementary, and your eye may not know where to focus first. The space sings with color. The brightly colored zinnias, marigolds and amaranth are a magnet for bumble bees, but it's the positivity and intentionality of the space that brings the children.   From the prayer flags fluttering in the breeze, to painted stones adorning the paths, every inch of this vibrant garden is adorned with creative decorations and careful thought. These personal touches reflect the heart of Farm to School Education, creating a place where students not only grow food but more importantly a connection to the earth. At the center of it all is Amy Duffy, Farm to School Coordinator, whose passion for nutrition and hands-on learning shines in the smiles of her students.

In the west river valley, Amy has become somewhat of a celebrity in the eyes of her students. In the local Riverbend Farm Market, a student jokes with her in passing: "Hey, Farm to School lady!". Though her students are well acquainted with her, it's a badge Amy wears with pride. She sees her work as far more than just a job—it's a mission to offer young minds exposure to rich, whole foods, much like Amy did growing up.

Amy’s food philosophy is a blend of heritage cooking and practicality. Growing up with an Italian grandmother who loved to cook and an Irish grandmother who embraced comfort foods, Amy saw both the joy of cooking from scratch and the realities of making food work in a busy life. “I share with the kids that it’s okay not to love every food—it’s a journey, and your tastes can change,” she says. "I want them to see food as something fun, something personal, and something that can evolve over time."

Amy’s journey to Farm to School is a blend of formal education and life experiences. "I went to school for health science with a focus on nutrition,” she shares. “I’ve always been interested in growing my own food and cooking, and I wanted to understand the science behind what happens in the body and why it’s important." This curiosity led Amy to study nutrition and work with programs like the Learning Kitchen, which teaches cooking and nutrition to young mothers. These experiences set the foundation for Amy’s belief that food should not only nourish the body but also the spirit.

After taking a break to raise her children, Amy was encouraged to apply for the Farm to School Coordinator position. Her love for early education and food made the role a perfect fit. For Amy, it’s all about bringing food education back to basics—helping kids understand where their food comes from and why it matters.

“I’m often surprised by how many kids don’t know simple things, like that potatoes grow in the ground," Amy remarks. "I think it’s really important to bring that knowledge back.”

One of Amy’s favorite moments is watching her students dig for potatoes. "They are so incredibly excited,” she says with a smile. “So much joy from just a potato.” For Amy, a simple activity like harvesting potatoes is like a treasure hunt into a deeper understanding of where  food comes from. And that’s only the beginning. Being able to sample fresh foods, straight from the garden is where the real magic is revealed. “If you haven’t ever tried a fresh potato, the flavor is amazing,” Amy says. “Creamy and vibrant, just like the difference between an out-of-season tomato and one grown in your garden. That same principle applies to all food.”

Amy believes in finding the right entry point for each child. Whether it’s the thrill of the harvest or the delight of tasting something new, she knows that food can inspire curiosity and connection. A parent once shared with Amy how her son came home after a pepper tasting in class and eagerly informed her that red peppers have more vitamin C than oranges. “We need to have red peppers with dinner, Mom!” he insisted. These moments remind Amy why her work is so important. Beyond just teaching her students the wonders of gardening and food, she hopes to instill a lifelong curiosity and understanding of food.

In her classroom and garden, Amy emphasizes hands-on learning. "Farm to School is such a unique experience because it’s something we all do every day—we eat!" she explains. She brings in her own experiences and encourages students to share theirs, creating a space where culture, family traditions, and personal tastes come together in a celebration of food.

Amy is quick to credit the strong foundation laid by those before her—Heather Sperling, who helped bring Farm to School to life, and Scotty Tabachnick, who continued to grow the program as well as the many allies who support farm to school programming across the district. With their support and the backing of a great team, Amy has been able to take the program to new heights.

Looking ahead, Amy dreams of expanding the garden and outdoor classroom space, adding seating and even a simple kitchen for cooking lessons. But for now, she’s content with the daily joys—the thrill of a student discovering that beans can be purple, the pride of a child teaching their parents something new, and the simple yet profound pleasure of watching kids connect with the food they grow.

- Devan Monette