An Interview with Mary Ross and Shannon Connolly, by Kris Nelson
On February 10th, I attended a ribbon cutting ceremony at Vernon Elementary School, where they celebrated the installation of a bulk milk dispenser in their cafeteria, with milk supplied from their neighbor, Miller Farm, the first of its kind in WSESU. The groundwork was laid for this in October 2023 when bulk milk dispensers were installed in the WNESU schools, with milk from Miller Farm in Vernon through a partnership between NOFA-VT and WNESU and support from Food Connects.
With the coming changes to the food service in WSESU next year, I wanted to learn more about how Vernon secured the milk dispenser and why it was important to them to persevere in this effort. Recently I spoke with Vernon Elementary School Principal, Mary Ross, and Vernon Kitchen Manager, Shannon Connolly, to hear the story. We sat in the school cafeteria near the newly installed bulk milk dispenser and piles of new cups. This interview is lightly edited for clarity.
Farmer Pete Miller of Miller Farm oversees the official ribbon cutting of Vernon Elementary School’s new Organic Bulk Milk Dispenser
KN: First, congratulations on your new bulk milk dispenser, right here next to us. Mary, when we chatted at the ribbon cutting, you indicated that the school had been working hard at this for a while. I wanted to hear more about how that came about. I get the impression that the two of you were pretty tenacious.
MR: (laughing): She found a word that describes us!
KN: Okay, great. Well, tell me what “tenacious” looks like.
MR: Let’s see. How many years has it been?
SC: For me it’s been four years. When I first started, I was curious why we would go on field trips to see Miller Farm but then we would not have his milk.
MR: Similarly, one of our staff members shared an article with me when Windham Northeast was getting the grant. She said, “Wouldn't this be nice for us?” And I said, “Oh, I've been working on this for a while now.”
KN: And why were you working on that?
MR: I look out my window at a community-owned family organic farm that has a wonderful product. These are community partners that are always lovely with us. They've donated products in the past to our school. They've been welcoming of kids coming over for field trips. When Pete Miller was in here for the ribbon cutting ceremony, you saw a kiddo run up and give him a huge hug, because he's seen as a community farmer and a leader and a source of comfort, I guess. During COVID, supply chains being what they were, there were times when I was going in my vehicle to pick up milk at another school because the milk couldn't be delivered since we were short-staffed. There were times when in delivery one of the milk containers would burst and a lot of the milk containers got sticky. And so, okay, that's the world of the global food supply chain, but I knew it could be different.
Watching Windham Northeast go through the process, it became even more frustrating since we've been asking the food service company for years to find a way to do more local food and find a way to have Miller Farm as a community partner. The answers we got over the years were per USDA regs. We need to have two kinds of milk. I kept asking myself, if Windham Northeast is under the same regulations, how is that possible? I'm not in charge of food service, but that's something that's been coming out of my mouth for many, many years, and is a goal I have for our school. How can we make it happen? Our Vernon school board has been supportive of that as well.
From Left: Pete Miller, Shannon Connolly (Vernon ES Kitchen Manager), Danielle Sage (Vernon Kitchen Staff Member), Susan Grabowski (WSESU Food Program Coordinator).
SC: Yes, they’ve been very supportive.
KN: They’ve been supportive of switching to bulk milk?
MR: Yes, and asking the question over the years: “Hey, I saw this article, hey, I saw the story, why aren't we doing this?” And me saying, “I'm doing my best.” We even put it as an open agenda item over a series of school board meetings to kind of follow up and see if there had been any progress. And so, very recently, I was told by the food service company that it was possible and that if we wanted to go forward with it, we could.
And so then, Shannon, you worked with Pete and maybe you could talk a little bit about the many forms and processes that were required of him to get it to this point. It was pretty arduous for him.
SC: It was hard, yeah. Kris, when you came a year and a half ago for a Food Service Advisory Meeting, you had given me Harley's name (Harley Sterling, WNESU Director of School Nutrition), so I reached out to Harley. And then Pete had given me everyone up in Windham Northeast, all their numbers to try and get the ball rolling. But there was grant writing and all sorts of crazy hoops that we had to jump through and it was not feasible for one person. So I reached out to Susan (WSESU Food Service Coordinator Susan Grabowski) and Mary also did a lot of researching and talking to people. It was just easier for the food service to say let's just get Hood Milk. It's just easier this way.
KN: Can you say more about what were some of the barriers?
SC: So the USDA states that you have to offer a child skim milk and 1%. I wish it was whole. We should be getting milk that has more fat in it. You need that fat for brain development. Anyway, so we always had the 1% and the skim milk from Hood and now Miller does skim and 1%. Pete’s 1% milk is not homogenized, so you get that little cream line at the top, so you gotta shake the bag. He doesn't do skim milk in the big bags, but we get skim milk from Hood so that we have it on hand. I think with Miller Farm milk, it's a start to really getting local Vermont products. But it was rough trying to get people to understand that we literally look out the window and see Pete's cows. Like, why wouldn't we have that milk? Why wouldn't that have just been like a staple to start out with?
MR: And that's why I'm excited that we're going to an independent food service. Because Shannon, you get up really early every morning and you sometimes are by yourself and you do hard things for kids. Like, that's what we do. We make these decisions to work in school so we can do hard things in support of what kids deserve. And I think that when that's the goal instead of profit being the goal, you're gonna see a difference, right?
SC: Absolutely. And I have a nursing background, so when I see the ingredient list for something and it's got three times the amount of sodium that a child should have in one day, it literally makes my eye twitch. I'm really trying to stop using canned tomato sauce, for example. I roast vegetables and tomatoes and make my own sauce. It's literally just roasted vegetables and I puree everything and the kids are like, “Wow, this sauce is so great. This is really good sauce.” And they have no idea that there's Brussels sprouts, that there's mushrooms, that there's peppers, that there's onions and things that I have to serve per the guidelines of the district. But they won't eat cauliflower. They won't eat Brussels sprouts. But they love everything “tomato sauce.” So on their pizza they're getting mushrooms and peppers and cauliflower and broccoli and they don't even know, but they love it.
KN: You are making it happen.
SC: Yeah, trying to.
KN: There’s the goal of the students eating these things, and you’re saying, “I know how to do that.”
SC: Right, yeah. Give me some freedom and I'll make it happen. I think going independent is going to be so much better with the food coming out of the kitchen.
MR: And it's already pretty great.
SC: Thank you.
MR: I've said publicly, the work that our staff here has done, the work that, Shannon, you've done with your leadership, has insulated us from challenges that other schools have had.
SC: Thank you.
KN: It does often take that person in that job to work the system and to be creative.
SC: I’ve been written up many times.
KN: Oh, really? And not in a good way!
SC: No, no. I don’t follow the recipes. But I'm not adding extra sugar into things. Like the tomato sauce, I don't add sugar to it, I add carrots. Makes it sweeter. And it's natural. I'm so grateful that Harley is coming because I feel like that's not something I would have to beg him to do or to try.
KN: You're gonna have an ally.
SC: Yes. Exactly, but it's something I had to beg for.
KN: And possibly get written up.
SC: Yeah.
KN: What seems so great is that Vernon getting a bulk milk dispenser, and developing a partnership with Miller Farm, intersects so nicely with the recent decision that was made about the independent food service. The stars are aligning in a certain way because you were successful in getting this right about the same time, so perhaps there’s an evolution that we’re seeing.
SC: There's so many chemicals in our food that we buy. I don't know what these kids eat at home, but I know that I can provide them with something that's not full of chemicals, that's good and nutritious and that they want to eat. So that's my motivation. I wouldn't serve it to these kids if I wouldn't serve it to my own child. Making the sauce is a big deal because they like it, and it's good and it's healthy for them and they're getting things that they might not be getting at home. So, that's my motivation: to give them something good and healthy and something that they'll eat.
MR: I was a reduced lunch kid myself as a kid. I think that food is more than food. It's an opportunity to gather. It's an opportunity to nourish your body so you can work and learn throughout the day. It's an opportunity to care for other people. When kids see that Shannon and Danielle have prepared delicious food for them, they feel cared for. To look out the window and see community partners and know that this milk I'm drinking came from that cow over there, that’s not abstract. It's not the same as the sticky carton that came from I'm not sure where. I know Mr. Miller. I've seen those cows. That's how I'm getting this nourishment for my body. It is pretty special.