Reenvisioning the Oak Grove School Garden

Tara in the new garden, standing in the heirloom pea patch with Aronia bushes in the foreground.

Big things are happening in the garden at Oak Grove School! As part of a larger project to reimagine the playground, with a focus of creating more opportunities for students to engage in nature-based play, the former garden area will transform into an orchard. An underutilized sunny space adjacent to the playground is now a new, larger garden space for the school community. 

The new garden features a perennial hedge of edible Aronia berries, an entry arbor for vining plants like watermelons and cucumbers, and new beds planted with greens, tomatoes, carrots, beets, beans, peas, flowers, and herbs. Oak Grove’s garden coordinator, Tara Gordon, spent the spring designing and planting at the school. In addition to the orchard and garden, she also updated perennial beds in front of the school with native plants and edibles. Her next project is to create a mushroom garden in another underused space on the north side of the building. 

The new garden with cattle panel garden archway.

The entire school community took part in the design process. Facilities manager, Greg Frost, worked closely with Tara on the project and will install a handwashing station in the garden to make it easier to garden with students in the summer garden program while following COVID-19 health and safety protocols for school gardens.

Planting the Seeds of Success—The Keene Sentinel

We know how important school gardens are for students’ learning and well-being. Our Summer Garden Coordinator, Tara Gordon, and Farm to School Program Manager, Conor Floyd, were recently highlighted in a great Keene Sentinel article on the importance of school gardens and how they can be brought home during COVID-19.

Food Connects Summer Garden Program begins soon!

Beginning June 22, school gardens in the Windham Southeast Supervisory Union will open to families interested in getting outside and into the weeds of gardening! Tara Gordon will return as the garden coordinator—hosting open garden hours at Vernon, Guilford, Green Street, Academy, Oak Grove, and Dummerston Schools. Come help weed, learn from Tara, and possibly take home some veggies!

New this year, Food Connects has partnered with RiseVT, the Insight Photography Project, River Gallery School of Arts, and the Human Art of Play to offer free art activities alongside the garden hours. All materials will be provided and parents are encouraged (although not required) to participate with their kids.

New protocols are in place to ensure the health and safety of everyone—gardeners will need to wear masks, practice physical distancing, refrain from eating in the garden, and use a sign-up form to manage the number of people in the garden at one time. Garden hours and locations, information about the art activities, and the new protocols can all be found at www.foodconnects.org/summer-garden-program. Please note, child care will not be provided and all children must be accompanied by an adult.

May 2020 Farm To School Newsletter

May Newsletter

VT School Meals

The Food Team

Bellows Falls Meal Delivery

Summer Garden Art Series

Summer Garden Art Series

This summer, alongside the open garden hours at schools, students and parents can participate in a variety of art activities in school gardens. The River Gallery School of Art, the In-Sight Photography Project, and the Human Art of Play will offer fun art and garden-based activities throughout the summer. Create a bug poster, learn about cyanotype art, and join in on circus yoga. All activities are free and supplies are provided. Students must be accompanied by a parent or guardian, who are welcome to join in the fun! The Summer Garden Art Series is a collaboration between Food Connects, RiseVT, WSESD, and Tara Gordon, Food Connects Garden Coordinator. Be on the lookout for the 2020 open garden hours, announced in May.   

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.

The Food Team: A Community Collaboration to Address Hunger

As Brattleboro Town Food Service Director Ali West of Fresh Picks Cafe fielded phone calls from families throughout Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) to sign their children up for school meals in the early days of COVID-19 school closures, she was often heartbroken as people reached out to her. Many shared that they were in desperate situations and did not have enough food, not only for their children during the school day but also for their entire family.

"I wondered what could be done to meet the needs for families," thought Ali West. "The regular school meals programs were not enough to feed entire families. So I reached out to Food Connects for guidance."

Conor Floyd, Farm to School Manager at Food Connects, represents area schools at the Windham Region Hunger Council and has strong relationships with school meal programs, area food shelves, and the Vermont Foodbank.

On a Hunger Council call a couple of weeks into the crisis, Christine Colascione, of Foodworks, shared that she saw a rapid increase in need across the community. Zach Hebert, of the Vermont Foodbank, led the coordination efforts between food shelves and relayed that information to his colleagues and secured more resources for food relief in Windham County. 

In Brattleboro, there is a strong network for anti-hunger organizations that provides relief to families. Organized through the Hunger Council, the network collaborates to best meet the growing food security needs of our community. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the group knew that they were not reaching all the families in need. This was particularly on the mind of Christine, who focused on creating more trauma-informed services at Foodworks after attending a Trauma and Food workshop led by Equity Solutions.  

"Many people are needing help for the first time,” noted Christine. “Navigating the charitable food system can be difficult for many—either knowing who to call or the stigma associated with accessing help.”

On a Hunger Council call, Sheila Humphreys of Food Connects wondered about the needs that families were communicating with Ali, and whether these families were being served by Foodworks or if they were falling through the cracks. Out of those questions, an idea began to take shape. Could Foodworks and the WSESU meal program work together to determine which families were not already receiving regular food deliveries from Foodworks, and launch a new, collaborative program to deliver food to these families through the school meal program delivery system?

Within a week, a new “Food Team” was formed with staff from WSESU Food Service, Foodworks, Food Connects, and the Vermont Foodbank, and they quickly came up with a plan. Using Foodworks’ existing account with the Foodbank, and with additional grant funding supplied by the Foodbank, Christine launched a new delivery program to families, managed and distributed by Ali via the Academy School meal site. “We are so happy to be part of this collaboration with the schools because this way, many people who wouldn't otherwise be helped, are able to get the food they need,” Christine remarked. “People are already familiar with the school system making it an easy access point, and using the busses is such an excellent and efficient way to deliver food."

For the first week of the program, staff from Foodworks, Food Connects, the Foodbank, and Fresh Picks unloaded the truck themselves to get a sense of the time and labor required.

Staff from Food Connects provided coordination and support services to launch this program, including muscle to move 4 pallets of shelf-stable food from the Foodworks truck into the school. Week 1 was a success! The Food Team met and refined delivery and ordering systems further, and decided to look for volunteers to help with the heavy lifting to get the food off the truck.  

The food boxes line the halls of Academy School, waiting to be loaded on buses for distribution.

WSESD is running two buses solely for food box distribution. Filled to the brim, they trundle about the district, delivering boxes to doorsteps.

Conor reached out to Assistant Fire Chief, Leonard Howard, for support. Not only was Leonard on board but he brought the request to a town staff meeting. From this, a new partnership was born with the town, where staff from Brattleboro Fire, Police, Highway, and Recreation and Parks signed up for a weekly shift to unload the truck. On the second Wednesday of the program, town staff had the truck unloaded in record time!

Fire, Police, Rec and Parks, and the Highway Dept came out in force to unload the delivery in record time.

After unloading the truck, part of the Food Team posed for a socially distant group photo.

As the program evolves, hiccups continue to occur, from working out the details of weekly distribution to communicating with families. But, the program is already providing much-needed support to families. In a recent conversation with Ali, she mentioned that “I heard from one family that said receiving the boxes has been such a relief, especially as they have 5 kids at home and one of the parents had been laid off! Many more have expressed gratitude and appreciation to the counselors that they are in contact with.”

This story is not only uplifting but serves as a model for how to create successful community collaborations. So, how did it happen?

Start with existing connections. The Windham Region Hunger Council, a decade-long collaboration, actively served our community before the crisis hit. The group already established norms and relationships with one another, allowing for a seamless transition to remote collaboration and an immediate platform for broad information sharing. 

Additionally, Food Connects had strong working relationships with Foodworks and the Foodbank—thanks to the community of practice group focused on trauma and nutrition which formed after the Equity Solutions training. This created a space for each organization to feel comfortable stepping into unknown territory as the new collaboration was formed.

Food Connects’ well-established Farm to School program supports WSESU schools and foodservice programs. Food Connects nurtured and developed those relationships to create strong partnerships with open lines of communication with the schools as well.

Identify key action teams. Large, regional collaborations are essential in spreading information and gaining a comprehensive understanding of the situation but they make quick action difficult. On the first Hunger Council response call, the group identified lead coordinators for the schools, food shelves, volunteers, and communications. 

Through this structure, Conor pulled together a smaller group of essential organizations to address the need Ali experienced at the schools. While keeping the Hunger Council informed, this group could then act quickly to put a new set of systems in place and ensure the food got out quickly and efficiently. 

Leverage existing resources. After identifying the problem and those best positioned to address it, the Food Team took stock of the resources at hand. The schools had the volunteers to pack the food and buses to deliver it. Whereas Foodworks had some additional ordering capacity via the Foodbank and a box truck to get the food to Academy School but lacked the home delivery infrastructure to cover an additional 130 families a week. With this information, the team created a new supply chain with the resources already at their disposal. 

Think about sustainability. The charitable food system relies on community funding and volunteer support. It was crucial to utilize existing systems in new ways to be able to address this need. By capitalizing on Foodworks' relationship with the Foodbank and the school’s connection with families and delivery network, the group ensured that this wasn’t a 180° pivot, but a reimagining of the services each organization already provided. 

Once there was proof of concept, the next thought was how to ensure this new program could exist for months into the future. The town’s on-going support unloading deliveries on Wednesday was the final piece to the puzzle and ensured the additional task didn’t fall to the district’s volunteers.

And what is the result of all this? A consistent source of additional food relief for 130 families in our community and more resilient organizational relationships for when the need arises again. This project is a model for the ways that community organizations can partner with schools and municipal staff to meet the needs of vulnerable populations in a time of crisis.

Food Connects is grateful of everyone who helped make this collaboration happen: Ali West and the incredible staff of Fresh Picks Cafe; Zach Hebert of the VT Foodbank; Christine Colascione and Ava Howard of Foodworks; Jon Sessions of Academy School; Leonard Howard of the Fire Department; the staff of the Fire Department, Police Department, Highway Department, and Recreation and Parks; and the Windham Region Hunger Council. It truly takes a village. 

On Air: Feeding Children—Call to Action

Our Farm to School Program Manager, Conor Floyd, joined Peter ‘Fish’ Case on Call to Action to discuss how Food Connects and schools are partnering to feed students during the uncertain times of COVID-19. Listen now!

Exploring Equity at Food Connects

What is the intersection between trauma, equity, and nutrition in our food system? This is a question that the Food Connects’ Equity Team grapples at each of our team meetings. This investigation allows us to take a critical look at the work we are doing in our community and engages us in deeper conversations around race, gender, and socio-economic status.

These conversations may seem daunting to some, but luckily there is a great resource to guide us through these challenging conversations. Last year, for the first and certainly not the last time, I participated in Food Systems New England’s 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge. The challenge consists of a daily email with information and prompts that encourage participants to learn, reflect, act, and go deeper on topics of racial justice and equity in our food system. The readings, videos, podcasts, and discussion questions gave me tools and resources that I returned to throughout the year as I wrote about the importance of working towards greater equity in our food system.

Last year, more than 3,500 people participated in the challenge. This year, in addition to individuals, they are opening the challenge up to whole organizations. So far more than 500 organizations signed up. The challenge runs from March 30 to April 19, and I encourage you to sign up personally or for your organization by clicking here.

Something that stuck with me the most from last year's challenge was the theme of storytelling. I have often referenced the Voices from the Food Chain videos this year, and I gave a lot of thought to how we, at Food Connects, can amplify the voices of the people we serve, including food service workers in our school cafeterias and students in our community who are coping with food insecurity.

We formed an equity team at Food Connects last summer, and we’re engaging in conversations about how to bring greater equity to our work with farmers who are people of color, women, and/or members of the LGBTQIA community.

I am looking forward to another opportunity to think about my work from different perspectives and to continue to ask myself how together we can build a food system that provides dignity for everyone. I hope that you’ll join me!

By Sheila Humphreys, Farm to School Coordinator

April 2020 Farm To School Newsletter

April Newsletter

Farm to School Responds to COVID-19

WSESU Schools Respond to COVID-19

Area Schools Provide Free Lunch

Professional Development

Racial Equity Challenge