Where in the World are We Eating? A Celebration of Diversity by the WSESD School Lunch Program

School lunch never tasted as good to me as it did on Tuesday, September 28, when I sampled a delicious Thai meal in the BUHS cafeteria. Thanks to “Where in the World are We Eating,” a new program by Brattleboro Regional Food Service Director Ali West of Fresh Picks Cafe, all Windham Southeast School District (WSESD) students had the opportunity to visit Thailand with their taste buds last month. Rather than the standard lunch fare of mac and cheese, pizza, and sandwiches, students could sample chicken satay, tofu Pad Thai, vegetarian Tom Kha soup (my favorite!), and mango sticky rice.

Ali was inspired to create this program to bring the entire school community together to celebrate the diversity of our school district through the shared experience of food. She collaborated with the district’s ESOL teachers to compile a list of the 22 countries students in WSESD are from. Twenty-two countries is a lot to fit into one school year, so she selected nine countries (one per month) to focus on this year, and she plans to continue the program and visit more countries in the future. Thailand is just the beginning! Here is the complete list of countries that students will get to explore with their taste buds this year:

• September - Thailand

• October - Jordan

• November - Haiti

• December - Germany

• January - Kenya

• February - Syria

• March - The Philippines

• April - Jamaica

• May - Bolivia

Ali is encouraging the entire school community at all nine schools in the district to get involved, with invitations to music, art teachers, and librarians to feature music, art, and literature highlighting these countries with their students throughout the year. Invitations have also gone out to 6th-12th grade social studies teachers to take turns doing an in-depth study with their students on the featured country. As a culmination of this research, students will create slideshows to share with students of all ages throughout the district to teach about each country’s flora, fauna, clothing, and scenery. For Thailand, Sarah Kaltenbaugh’s 6th graders at Academy School created an engaging slideshow that highlighted beautiful statues, floating markets, and clouded leopards. This slideshow was shared with students from pre-K through high school seniors during the special meal. Early grades can decorate their school cafeterias with coloring pages incorporating images from each featured country.

“I want all of our students, no matter where they are from, to feel welcomed and celebrated in our schools,” says Ali West. As a chef and food service director, the best way that she has found to do this is through a celebration of diversity in the school meal program, which is accessible to all students again this year thanks to the USDA extension of universal meals. Ali even met the added challenge of including local produce in the meal by purchasing bean sprouts from the Chang Farm in Whately, MA, through the Food Connects Food Hub.

School Meal Enrollment Opens Ahead of Upcoming School Year

School nutrition programs are an essential part of students’ lives, local Farm to School programs, and school success. One of the easiest ways to support your school’s nutrition program is by enrolling in free and reduced meals. The 2020-21 form is available here and this tip sheet from Hunger Free Vermont helps walk you through the short, one-page application. 

Many families may be newly eligible for the program due to COVID-19 related changes to their family income. Even if you’ve never applied before, this year is a crucial time for schools looking to balance budgets and maintain progress—submitting the application helps your entire community!  

Food Connects has compiled a School Meals Enrollment hub to help you easily find additional information and know where to send your application once it’s completed. Specific questions should be directed to your school but our team is always happy to help get you connected as well.

More Than Local

Jennifer Gaddis’ new book, “The Labor of Lunch,” broadens the spotlight on school meals. Without diminishing the importance of healthy, local foods, Gaddis explores the activist work that brought the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) to where it is today, exposes the systemic roadblocks preventing a new “economy of care” within our schools, and suggests actions readers can take now to be a part of the solution. 

What made you last think about school meals? When your child started Kindergarten? During Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Campaign in 2010? Not since you graduated high school? 

To many, school meals are boring—as enticing as the thought of reading a 200+ page book on a dull government program. Food Connects works to dispel people’s biases of the former, partnering with school nutrition programs to incorporate more local food and scratch cooking, and to share stories of their success. Gaddis does quick work of the latter in her introduction: 

Ultimately, school lunch is about community. It’s also about the conflict between civil society, the government, and the private sector over what children should be fed, whose responsibility it is to feed them, who should do the work of feeding them, and what, exactly, this work should entail. More often than not, food for children to eat at school is prepared by a woman—a child’s caregiver, a private sector factory worker, or a public sector lunch lady—for free or for poverty wages.  

Labor of Lunch, p.5

All of a sudden—five pages in—school lunch doesn’t feel as innocuous as previously thought. 

The history of the NSLP starts back in the early 1900s with feminist activists Emma Smedley and Ellen Swallow Richards taking on the work of a nonprofit lunch program and advancing the new science of home economics. What’s most striking in these early sections of the book are the examples of how far we’ve come—far stricter food safety regulations and cafeterias finding a permanent home in schools—adjacent to conversations we’re still having today—debates over universal free meals and for-profit vs non-profit lunch programs. It’s a good reminder that progress isn’t always linear and successful activism is a balance of ideology and pragmatism.

One of these pragmatic compromises made by early activists sets the stage for the dichotomy we’re still working to dissolve today—that school nutrition programs need to “break-even” financially, despite no other school program shouldering the same expectation (imagine the administration expecting the science department to raise revenues to cover the cost of lab equipment). Due to the conservative, mostly male, school boards and administrations dictating policy, in the newly created school lunch programs, cheapness—at the expense of quality and workers—reigned supreme.     

The next three chapters—much of the book—is a chronicle of the persistent efforts of schools to reduce costs and corporations to eke out profits. Both, typically, at the expense of those serving our kids and most affecting poor people and communities of color. Along with women, BIPOC leaders were often on the frontlines fighting for change. The 1960s saw Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s Poor People's Campaign call upon the government to provide free lunch to all poor children and the Black Panther Party running the Free Breakfast for Children Program. Following in the 1970s was a conservative backlash and opening up of cafeterias to private corporations. 

The Labor of Lunch closely follows New Haven chapters of the labor union Unite Here, as well as the Minneapolis Public Schools, as examples of how to establish better economies of care within schools. These labor movements have emphasized the inextricable connection between food justice and racial justice. While both should be taught to our students, they should also be practiced in our schools. 

In Windham County, we can look to Windham Central Supervisory Union (Seed2Tray) and Windham Northeast Supervisory Union (Farm to School Cafe), as well as individual schools such as Putney Central School and Marlboro School, to find schools valuing labor. In all these cases, staff saw their pay increase and were offered school benefits. These are the test pilots for our entire region as we move back to locally-focused school nutrition programs that value their workers and the quality of the food.

Gaddis concludes by suggesting a “more expansive vision of what food systems could look like if we focus our collective efforts on transforming the NSLP into a hub for food justice—real food and real jobs—in every community across the rural-urban divide” (215). From the push for universal meals to local food hubs and community kitchens, much of that work has already taken hold in our region. With widespread community support and creative solutions, we could find our community leading the next step in the food justice movement. 

Order your copy of The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools today.

Written by Conor Floyd, Farm to School Program Manager

Who Feeds Our Kids: Kerri Harlow

Food Connects is launching a new series highlighting the amazing essential workers in our community who work hard every day to keep our children fed. Read on to learn more!

Kerri Harlow

For 12 years Kerri Harlow has worked in school food service at Putney Central School (PCS). Before she was in food service she worked as a paraeducator at PCS for 10 years in the 1990’s. And this month, she is retiring. We sat down recently and had a chat about her work, how things have changed in her work since COVID-19, and some of the things she loves about her job. Here are some highlights from that conversation:

Sheila Humphreys (SH): How has your work changed due to COVID-19?

“It keeps me going to think about the children and know that we are still impacting their lives even though we’re not seeing them. I know that there are so many people that are totally dependent on 2 school meals a day for their children and it’s rewarding to help.”

— Kerri Harlow

Kerri Harlow (KH): For the first 3 weeks I continued to work all the hours that were needed to get the lunches out. Then, as the COVID cases got closer because my husband and I are both considered high risk (especially my husband) for a while I couldn’t come in to work at all. When things started opening up I began coming back in the afternoon every day and preparing food for the next day.  The worst part for me is to be in the building and have it be totally empty. It seems very odd. Not seeing the kids is very hard. We try not to always make sandwiches and brown bag lunches, so what we’re cooking hasn’t changed that much, it’s how we distribute it that has changed.

SH: What is keeping you going during these unusual times?

KH: It keeps me going to think about the children and know that we are still impacting their lives even though we’re not seeing them. I know that there are so many people that are totally dependent on 2 school meals a day for their children and it’s rewarding to help. Everyone receiving the meals has been so wonderful! We get emails and pictures of the children with their food, and one woman sent us a picture when we sent food for the entire week during April break. The picture was of her 2 children and her refrigerator that was packed and organized with the whole week's lunches and breakfasts. Knowing how much people have appreciated the meals and the fact that they are showing their appreciation with what they can, mainly with a note here or there has meant a lot.

SH: What has been your biggest challenge during this time?

KH: As far as school goes, it’s been challenging to feel like I am contributing enough because I have had to stay home for part of the time. It was hard for me to feel like I was doing my share, so I’m very happy to be back now, in the afternoons. I just made it my mission to put little gifts in the bags every Friday for the kids. It’s been the worst thing, not being at work when I know I’m supposed to be. Sometimes you come to work and you think, oh I wish I could stay home today, but then when it happens it’s not fun and you realize how much being at work really means.

SH: How can the community support you and other food service workers during this time?

KH: We’ve had a wonderful response from the staff members who are coming in and helping. This came about so quickly and we’ve never done this before, but it’s gone much more smoothly than I would have thought it would. I worry about next year. I wonder what's going to happen and how it's all going to come together. I wonder how long people can keep this going because it’s hard. As far as the community, they’ve done all that they can, and it definitely has been enough. Everyone has come together. It’s got to be done so we’re doing it!

SH: What advice would you give to someone who is interested in working in school food service?

KH: It is the most rewarding job I’ve ever had. It’s not easy at times, but since COVID-19, I have a whole new appreciation of the job. If someone has children in the school or in the district, it’s a great job because you have the same schedule as your children. When I was here as a paraeducator for 10 years in the 1990’s my children were in school here, and when I came back 12 years ago I was taking care of my granddaughter and she was in school here. It’s fantastic because the pressure is reduced as a working parent. The school understands when your child is sick and you have to stay home. Having the school vacations and snow days is great peace of mind. Working with the kids is wonderful. You get so close to them, handing them their meals every day. You wouldn’t think it would be enough time to connect with them but you do. It’s very, very rewarding and great to spend that much time with children.

SH: What brings you joy?

KH: My family and my work, and I love to do all different types of crafts. I’m retiring this year, and I can’t wait to come back as a volunteer. It’s not a job that you walk away from easily. I’m such good friends with everyone in the building, so I realized that if I volunteer I can have more one on one time with the kids. I love interacting with the kids and I’m looking forward to that when I come back as a volunteer. I love working with children. I had a home daycare, I was a para, and then I have been a cook here. Everything I’ve done for work has been child-oriented.

SH: What are you grateful for?

KH: I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work here twice when it was the perfect fit for my family. I’m very grateful for all the people here that I’ve met, some of whom have been friends since I worked here back in the 1990’s. I am extremely grateful for the insurance that the school provides. I didn’t have that as a paraeducator or when I worked here with a food service company, but when our meal program became independent the school put us on their insurance which was amazing. I’m very grateful to have had this job and have had it work so well. It’s been really, really wonderful. Seeing the kitchen change to an independent food service while I’ve been here was amazing, and Food Connects’ staff Helen, Katherine, and Richard were so wonderful. It is something I loved that happened while I was working here! It was very good for the school and we have such support from the community for the food program and I’m very grateful for that also.

SH: Final thoughts?

KH: I'm retiring at the end of this year and it’s going to be very, very hard to leave. It’s been a fantastic job. The closer retirement gets, I think, “what am I doing?” but it’s time to move on, and by no means am I walking away from this building. They will probably get sick of me! It’s been a fantastic job. I broke my shoulder this winter and I was out of work for 2 months. I was just starting to come back when the school closure happened. All of the kids made me cards and the staff made me food and I had all these special things I was going to do for each classroom when I came back but I couldn’t do any of it because of the school closure. I’m looking forward to making good on my intention to pay it forward when I come back as a volunteer. 

Addendum: We learned after this interview that Kerri is an incredible baker and she is making individual graduation cakes (yes, a whole cake!) for all of the 8th graders.

Change is Coming to Springfield School District’s Cafeterias this Fall

One of the mantras of Farm to School is the three C’s—classrooms, cafeterias, and communities. Of the three, cafeterias are arguably the most complicated—federal nutritional guidelines dictate much of what is served, complicated funding and eligibility formulas heavily influence School Nutrition Programs’ finances, and procurement regulations add to the pile of paperwork on Food Service Directors' desks.

In an effort to simplify all this, many districts contract out the work of feeding their students to Food Service Management Companies (FSMC, usually for-profit companies). Economies of scale and specialized experience in the field can give these companies a competitive edge and increased efficiency of feeding kids. There can exist a tension between school meal affordability and quality and the profit motive inherently tied to for-profit businesses. Similar discussions are playing out in other areas of American life where public services are privatized—healthcare, prisons, and schools at large.

For our discussion today it means that behind the scenes at the most local level, an individual school’s cafeteria, there are two bureaucracies sharing responsibility—the school administration and the FSMC. That can make effecting change more difficult and clear communication essential. It effects what students are eating every day. To get a better picture of the landscape of school lunches in southeastern Vermont, check out our Cafeteria Unknown stories. 

Every five years, a district’s food service contract needs to be re-bid, which is when the school nutrition contract is open to the public for other companies and individuals to bid. This can be a time to reflect on the current state of school meals and reassess what values the district wants to elevate—this could include incorporating more local foods, improving meal quality, or moving towards universal meals. Springfield School District (SSD) completed its contract rebid this spring and staff from Food Connects, the Department of Health, and Springfield Hospital worked with the school staff to update the nutritional guidelines in their wellness policy.  

Beth Brothers, SSD’s Health Coordinator, led this effort on the wellness team, which also serves as the district’s nutrition advisory council. Given the team’s interest in nutrition, it was a natural fit for them to take on much of the work in preparation for the contract being re-bid. Laurie Colgan, former State Director for Child Nutrition Programs, was contracted to manage the entire process and the wellness team dug into recommendations for nutritional changes. 

Of all the bids received, one stood out to Beth and many others on the review committee. The Abbey Group, a Vermont-based FSMC, ultimately won the contract. In addition to being a local company, their bid stood out to Beth because of the emphasis placed on nutrition education for their staff. The commitment to professional development and higher wages helped the Abbey Group’s bid rise to the top. 

Beth is excited to see what the new program looks like for SSD’s students this coming fall. Despite uncertainty over what school will look like, Beth and the wellness team hopes to see more local and healthy foods on the menu. She’s excited about starting a new relationship with the Abbey Group. When looking back on the entire process, Beth reflected that “the thing I have seen the biggest need for is stronger communication and collaboration.” It’ll be with that takeaway in mind that the wellness team starts the new school  

Cafeterias Unknown: Bellows Falls Union High School Meal Delivery

Food Connects’ Farm to School program is asking many of the same questions as our colleagues in schools—What does remote learning look like for students? How can we continue to support the social and emotional needs of students? What about all the kids who rely on school meals? In the past two months, a collective epiphany swept the country as the importance of school meals came into focus. Despite looking a bit different, our work supporting and championing school meals continues—and so last Wednesday I visited Bellows Falls Union High School to lend a hand and gain a better perspective of what it takes to put out school meals in the era of COVID-19. 

At the school

Bags and boxes lined up for distribution. Meals go out three times at week in the WNESU.

Bags line the facade of the building, stacked on picnic tables, as they wait to load onto buses. There’s a pop-up tent battling the wind by the road—in addition to the bus routes, families can pick up meals themselves at the high school, middle school, or Saxtons River Elementary. Once inside the cafeteria, a bustle of activity greets me as staff and volunteers pack additional bags for pickup and delivery. Like many districts, the backbone labor of Windham Northeast Supervisory Union’s (WNESU) distribution system is teachers, paraeducators, and other school support staff. 

The kitchen is no less busy. Staff are preparing the last of today’s meals and getting ready for the next wave going out on Friday. Just as I start to feel a little lost with no job to do, Harley Sterling (WNESU School Nutrition Director) happily jumps alongside to show me their current set-up and talk about how the new program is going.

Four weeks in, Farm to School Cafe is finally in a groove and things are running smoothly. Harley is excited about a recent contract with the Department for Children and Families to supply breakfast, lunch, and dinner for families staying at a nearby motel. That’s an additional 160 meals a day, more community members served, and slightly more funds to run the program. 

I settle in to help Melissa Bacon (Westminster School Nutrition Manager) pack bags for today's delivery to the motel and talk about how school closure affected her. Westminster School is closed, so Melissa is working out of the high school. Her son, in 3rd grade, and daughter, in 6th, are learning from home. While her daughter took to distance learning pretty quickly, her son still requires quite a bit of guidance. The Farm to School Cafe staff are balancing the responsibility of feeding their communities with the now universal job of home-school teacher.  

On the bus

After finishing off the last of the bags with Melissa, I head out to one of the buses with Harley and Lija Geller (Westminster Afterschool Program Director). Renee, the bus driver, already lined the bags in the seats in order of stops. An incredibly organized system, which only took us minutes to confuse. Luckily Denise, a staff member from Westminster, joined us as well and was a regular on this route. 

Since we had four volunteers on a bus that usually only had two, there was plenty of time to reorganize the lunch bags and for conversation, as we completed the route (Denise had an impressive 75’ X 75’ garden and, by the sounds of it, is a prodigious canner.) Our stops varied—meals were left on front porches, handed off to groups of cars waiting at the ends of dirt roads, and relayed to one student driving a three-wheeler. 

As we drove, the conversation turned to increasing meal participation numbers. Meals are currently free to any child 18 or under—they don’t need to be a student at WNESU, there’s no income cap, and all you need to do to enroll is fill out a quick Google Form. While many families rely on the meals to feed their kids, you do not need to be in dire economic straits to receive meals nor will your participation preclude other families from participating. 

All school meal programs are operating under the Summer Food Service Program rules, meaning the reimbursement rate they receive from the federal government is slightly higher. This, in turn, helps shore up school budgets in a time of increased uncertainty. Whether you sign up for meals because it’s one less thing you need to worry about or it's something familiar for your kids, all districts want you to enroll. 

Bus rules to live by.

After just over an hour, we bumped along the access road into the high school parking lot with all 60 bags distributed. It was right around 11 and cars continued to roll up to the to-go tent (which was miraculously still standing). Inside, things were winding down and thoughts turned to Friday when the next round of deliveries would go out. Harley and his team are ready to keep this up for as long as it is needed—it may look a little different, but the work continues.  

Questions about accessing school meals? Want to share your experience with school meals during coronavirus? Email us at farmtoschool@foodconnects.org.

Windham Southeast Supervisory Union's Meal Program Response to COVID-19

Alison Kelly, Intensive Services teacher at Brattleboro Union High School & Brattleboro Area Middle School, volunteers in the Academy School Kitchen portioning out fresh grapes for student lunches.

When Food Service Directors Ali West and Justin McArdle of Fresh Picks Cafe received the call that schools in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) would be canceled due to COVID-19, they stepped into high gear, figuring out how to quickly get school meals out to students throughout the region who depend on those meals.

Initially, there were administrative hurdles to jump through in order to receive funding for these meals through federal and state funding sources. Kira Sawyer-Hartigan, WSESU’s Nutrition Programs and Wellness Consultant, assisted Ali and Justin with navigating these issues. Once they received the go-ahead from federal and state agencies, Ali and Justin rolled up their sleeves and got to work, doing what they do best—feeding children.

Ali, Justin, and staff from their own kitchens, as well as staff from Vernon, Guilford, and Dummerston now work together in two kitchens (Academy School and BUHS/BAMS) to make breakfast and lunch daily for nearly 1100 students in WSESU. School buses are used to help with distribution with teachers and paraeducators volunteering to ride along on the bus routes and hand out the food to families. This support from school staff is crucial—it brings a friendly, familiar face to these vulnerable families during this challenging time. BAMS/BUHS intensive services teacher Alison Kelly says that she has volunteered on the Vernon bus regularly as a way to stay connected with some of her students, and she has witnessed first hand the smiles on students' faces as they come to meet the bus each day to receive their food. Her students look forward to this friendly routine each day. Right now, the meals served are cold breakfast and lunch, 5 days a week, but as the new system grows and funds allow, Ali and Justin would like to add some hot meals to the menu, as well as dinner and food for the weekends.

A Glimpse at Academy School’s School Meal Operation

Ali starts each day in her kitchen at 5 am, checking the master list of students who are signed up for meals and making new additions to that list daily as more requests come in. She also works closely with Becca Kenyon, the dispatcher at Kuzmeskus bus company, to figure out how to reconfigure bus routes to accommodate new families who sign on to the meal program. Ali says she couldn’t do this work without Becca—Becca is so devoted to the project that she works some nights and weekends, driving around to figure out how to seamlessly fit in new stops to the routes so that all families can participate easily.

By 6:30 am, Ali’s crew arrives and starts to work. They assemble bag breakfasts together like a well-oiled machine. They had some practice with assembly-line meals prior to COVID-19—they were already preparing 300 bagged after school meals daily. Now, the existing systems are expanded to make everything work on a larger scale. There are no students in the building, allowing the staff to spread out rows of bags across several tables in the cafeteria, and this added space is crucial to the operation.

Ali says one challenge faced by her staff is having chronically dry hands from near-constant washing and sanitizing. She says her staff is very conscientious of all safety protocols including vigilant hand sanitation, wearing masks and gloves, and keeping 6-foot distance. Wearing masks is so natural now that every day someone forgets they are wearing a mask and tries to take a sip of coffee or a bite of lunch without first removing the mask, which can be messy! Luckily, they have plenty of colorful masks handmade by volunteers, and Ali jokingly says that wearing masks has the added benefit of stopping stress-eating at work!

Ali is challenged by product shortages of certain items like single-serve yogurt containers and individually packaged cheese sticks—which are in high demand by schools all across the country. Whenever possible, Ali tries to keep the menu consistent because she knows how a last-minute menu change can be challenging for students. Ali continues to face the ongoing hurdle of tight budgets for the meal program. Luckily, she was able to find a creative way to save 23 cents per bag by leaving out condiments and plastic utensils since students are eating these meals at home—freeing up resources to improve the quality of the food she serves.

By far, the coordination of all the moving pieces of this new feeding program is the biggest challenge for Ali—from managing staff and volunteers to figuring out correct quantities in order to minimize food waste. She likens the work that she has done creating new systems in uncharted territory as being an “air traffic controller with my eyes closed and working in a different language.” But, she is finding her stride and providing critical leadership to make the program run smoothly. A colleague recently expressed the need to wrap Ali up in a highly sanitized bubble to protect her from all illness, because the school district is relying heavily on her right now to keep the operation going.

Ali’s dedication to feeding our community runs in the family. Her mom runs the Guilford Food Pantry—which remains open during the pandemic and is offering curbside delivery with the help of Ali’s father, also working as a volunteer. Families write their orders on an order slip and Ali’s parents bring orders to volunteers working inside the pantry who pack boxes of food. Ali is concerned that her parents stay healthy, and so she donated oodles of pencils to the food pantry so that each person can keep the pencil they used to place the order.

A Glimpse at BUHS’s School Meal Operation

At Brattleboro Union High School, the staff transitioned quickly after Governor Scott ordered schools to close. “The very first thing we did was to sanitize everything,” said Justin McArdle, BUHS Food Service Director, “we’re pretty meticulous about cleanliness and sanitation regardless, but when we realized the magnitude of this thing, we ramped it up to 11.” After they did a deep clean, the team began thinking about what changes needed to happen. They tried adapting as much leftover food in the kitchens into deliverable meals and created a new menu that enabled easy distribution. 

The biggest change was transitioning from primarily serving hot meals to entirely cold meals. “The process has changed significantly,” said Justin. “We’re now doing volume production, instead of making 18 pizzas a day and 200 sandwiches and a few batches of a hot meal, we have people prepping out 400 salads and 400 cups of yogurt, there’s an assembly line feel to it right now.” From a chef’s perspective, Justin would like to see more scratch cooking, but he sees the current set-up as the most effective way to serve the entire district—which is putting out over 2100 meals per day—during this time of need.

Justin also says that the entire staff has stepped up to the challenge. Like everyone else in the community, the staff are concerned about their health and the wellbeing of their families. But they still come in every day and have adapted to the change really well. “I really admire how they have managed to come in and grasp it so quickly,” Justin said during our interview. 

There have been some hiccups along the way. Supply chain disruptions are still occurring. “Last week it was finding paper bags,” said Justin, “this week it’s been finding cheese sticks.” The entire staff has to be resourceful in finding alternatives when shortages occur. The community also pitched in. Recently, Food Connects put out the call for community members to lend their coolers to the program to help distribute the weight of all the meals being delivered. Within a couple of days, Justin had the ten coolers he needed. 

When asked how the community can help now, Justin said that more families could sign up for school meals and help spread the word to their neighbors and friends. The program is free to all children 18 years and younger. The district asks that families fill out a short survey to help the program better predict the number of meals they need to make. More information about the program can be found on their website. 

Cafeterias Unknown: Tasting Tibetan Cuisine at Academy School

Back when this blog was started, the intent was to highlight all the amazing work that’s taking place in cafeterias throughout southeastern Vermont. Today, students are exposed to a far more diverse range of dishes and cuisines than what was common 10 or 20 years ago. During a recent meeting with Ali West (Fresh Picks, Brattleboro Town Schools Food Service Director), I was again reminded how far school lunch has come. 

In an effort to be more inclusive of the increasingly diverse student body at Academy School, Ali started the “Where In The World Are We Eating” project, highlighting cuisines from other cultures. A few weeks back, that meant I was treated to a delicious Tibetan lunch while Ali and I talked over local purchasing. The meal turned out to be so good that it was hard to concentrate on the meeting!  

What exactly was on the menu? Dhang Tsel (cabbage salad), Jha Sha Curry (Tibetan chicken curry with rice), and Shogo Ngopa (spicy potatoes with spinach and flatbread). If there’s ever been a challenge to the traditional school lunch, this is it. Ali let me bring some Shogo Ngopa back to the office and my coworkers had the same reaction as I did—“is this really what they served at school?!” It was exotic, it was spicy, and it was delicious. 

When asked about the students’ reaction, Ali said that “the entire school loved it, I only had one student who wouldn’t try it. Otherwise, it was a huge hit.” This reinforces one of the main philosophies we hold at Food Connects—if you serve quality food, students will trust you, try new things, and eat healthily. Next month the school is headed to China and Sheila and I already have our flight booked!

A New Back to School Look for Leland & Gray

If you visit the Leland & Gray Union Middle & High School cafeteria this fall, you might notice a new back to school style.

This summer when the kids went on break their Seed2Tray team went to work. Food Service Director, Chris Parker, wanted to create a fun space for the school community to enjoy their meals for the 2019-2020 school year. First, they gave their kitchens a deep cleaning, and lots of coats of paint. Then turned their focus to the Leland & Gray cafeteria.

“The cafeteria had spent years looking grey and dull, so we recruited the art teacher, Suzanne Paugh from Newbrook Elementary,” says Chris. “She had been the leader on our makeover at Newbrook last year, and I knew I needed her for this project.” Suzanne worked with the incoming 5th and 6th graders to achieve an industrial/graffiti art feel—and the kids were very excited to be a part of such a large project that would impact their school. They created the signs for each station, then painted them before Chef Chris took them back to his woodshop for the finishing touches.

The Seed2Tray team worked hard throughout the school year to get to this point. They applied for a mini grant through Food Connects for a new salad bar, generously donated by Entera Catering. The receipt of the salad bar allows the team to provide a wider variety of options for students to make delicious salads. Chris also worked hard to ensure that Universal Meals were added to the budget for the 2019-2020 school year for the entire school district.

Now school is here, the time they all worked so hard to prepare for. “We are excited to see our students and show them their new cafeteria. They are now welcomed by a new hot line, a new salad bar, a pizza bar, and a sandwich bar complete with panini press. The best part is that every student in Jamaica Village, Townshend, Leland & Gray, and Newbrook will ALL EAT FOR FREE.”

Thanks to the entire Seed2Tray team for their hard work to make schools meals welcoming and delicious. Be sure to follow them on Instagram at Seed2Tray.

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!