Central Elementary Embraces Farm to School

Central Elementary in Bellows Falls is excited to be able to expand their Farm to School (FTS) programming by joining the Northeast Farm to School Institute this year! In October, second graders took on a leadership role as they taught their peers about carrots. The students were wrapping up an ongoing project in which they harvested, researched, and painted carrots, and then presented what they learned to students in grades kindergarten through fourth! At the end of the week, Food Service Professional Erica Frank cooked up a carrot cake breakfast cookie as a special breakfast item highlighting carrots grown in the school garden. 

This deep dive into project-based learning and authentic teaching is one example of the exemplary Farm to School programming happening at Central Elementary School. This Bellows Falls area school is the latest in Windham County to join the Northeast Farm to School Institute. The Institute, which runs from Summer 2021-Summer 2022 is a year-long professional development opportunity offered by Vermont FEED. It gives school teams the time and guidance to form a Farm to School Action Plan and decide how they want to implement Farm to School in their community. The Institute also provides schools with a grant and coaching to get their programs off the ground.

Asked about why they were interested in joining the Institute, 2nd-grade teacher Judy Verespy remarked, “I think FTS helps students make the connection that eating well supports their learning and their health. I am also hoping they learn that it connects us with farmers in our community and helps support their important businesses. It truly is a win-win!”

This fall students have also harvested vegetables, planted garlic, and prepared the garden for winter. Future plans include hosting farmers as guest speakers, expanding their growing capacity, and continuing to create community through student-to-student teaching. And this work is already showing an impact. As Verespy shared, “One way FTS has impacted our school thus far is generating excitement and interest in fuelling our bodies properly. I see students reading nutrition labels and bringing or choosing fresh fruits and vegetables for snacks more often!”

Thank you to Vermont FEED for supporting so many schools with this program and Chroma Technology for sponsoring Central Elementary’s attendance at the institute this year. And, thank you to Central Elementary for your inspiring work!

Want to try those tasty-sounding Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies? Check out the recipe below!

Carrot Cake Breakfast Cookies

*adapted from “Love Real Food” magazine

1 cup oats

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

1 ½ cups peeled and grated carrots

1 cup toasted sunflower seeds

¼ cup raisins or dried cranberries

½ cup honey or maple syrup

½ cup oil-coconut or vegetable

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line a large rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.

2. In a large bowl, combine oats, flour, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and ginger.  Whisk to blend.  Add in the carrots, raisins, sunflower seeds and stir to combine.

3. In a medium bowl, combine honey or maple syrup with the oil.  Whisk until blended.  Pour wet mixture into the dry, and stir until just combined.  The dough will appear very wet.

4. Drop a small spoonful of the mixture onto the baking trays; leaving 2 inches between each scoop.  Using the palm of your hand, gently flatten the cookie to about ¾ inch thickness.

5. Bake until the cookies are golden and firm around the edges, about 15-17 minutes. Allow to cool on a baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to a baking rack to cool completely. Leftover cookies will keep, covered, at room temperature for about 2 days; 5 days in the refrigerator, and 3 months in the freezer.

Expanding Farm to School Throughout Windham County

Chroma Technology Supports Growth of Farm to School in the WNESU

 Chroma Technology is growing Farm to School programs across the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union (WNESU) this school year by being the lead Farm to School donor for Food Connects, a Brattleboro-based non-profit serving schools in Windham County.

The Food Connects Farm to School program focuses on the “Three C’s” of Farm to School—classrooms, cafeterias, and communities. The generosity of Chroma Technology allows Food Connects to continue and strengthen its work in the WNESU. “We are incredibly grateful for the support that Chroma Technology is providing us this year,” says Sheila Humphreys, Food Connects Farm to School Coach. “Their dedication to Farm to School initiatives in our community ensures that more students can access locally grown food and can experience engaging Farm to School curriculum.”

“One of Chroma's core values is to be an active and caring member of our community,” says Newell Lessell, CEO of Chroma Technology. “Chroma supports Food Connects’s Farm to School program because helping develop healthy eating habits through education and access to nutritious, locally farmed food is good for children’s health, supports Vermont farmers, and builds healthy communities.”    

So how do these funds impact schools and, more importantly, the students in the WNESU? 

School Food

Bellows Falls Union High School students, and other students throughout the district, saw lots of local food throughout the summer through the Farm to School Cafe’s summer meal box initiative. This program provided students and their families with fresh, nutritious food throughout the summer, regardless of their financial circumstances. As part of Vermont Act 67 and the local food purchasing incentive, students will begin to see more local food on their trays this school year. The Food Connects Farm to School team is working hard to help school nutrition programs navigate this new incentive, in conjunction with offering Vermont grown and made foods through its Food Hub.

School Gardens

School gardens are an essential tool for hands-on and outdoor learning. Westminster Center School is a shining example of how school gardens can be done right. In May, the entire school participated in their Garden Day—a day where students plant seeds and seedlings in the school garden. As students harvest the final fruits of their labor, the garden continues to see an increase in infrastructure. Most notably, a frost-proof water spigot, a chicken coop, a small outdoor prep station, fire pits for outdoor cooking this winter, and blueberry bushes. Food Connects provided the school grant support, marketing materials, and hands-on support in the garden—and looks forward to supporting future garden projects, including the annual Farm and Field day later this month.

Farm to School Teams

Food Connects works with Farm to School teams throughout the region. This task is essential to help develop, guide, and implement Farm to School action plans, provide curriculum and grants support, and create materials and marketing for these programs. Central Elementary School formed a new Farm to School team this year that is participating in the Northeast Farm to School Institute. This school year, the school plans to expand its gardening and do more hands-on cooking in the classrooms, including monthly taste tests organized by the 2nd grade. Food Connects looks forward to working with Central’s Farm to School team to help bring in best practices for gardening and cooking with kids.

Grafton Elementary School is also deepening its Farm to School programming this year, with plans to add new grow labs, a hydroponic fish tank, and cooking tools, including a new oven to make it easier to teach cooking to students. Food Connects will continue to support these new initiatives through coaching and curriculum resources.

A Farm to School Celebration

For most school administrators, their work has been non-stop since the pandemic first came to Vermont. From ever-changing health guidelines to troubleshooting class schedules and how to safely bring students back to in-person learning, and all the different technologies they’ve had to adopt, there hasn’t been much time for rest and reflection. Thanks to the generous support of Members 1st Credit Union, Food Connects hosted administrators and school nutrition professionals from across the region for an afternoon celebration of all that’s been accomplished despite the odds. 

On a deceivingly sunny day, 14 school staff members from 9 different schools gathered together for the first time, in what seems like, ages. Each school has a unique Farm to School program, yet schools rarely get to see all the interesting things happening elsewhere. The guests had the opportunity to cross-pollinate and share ideas on how to improve school gardens, share unique ideas about incorporating local food into their cafeterias, and generally celebrate the amazing (and challenging) Farm to School year.

“It was so nice to be able to connect with other area schools and hear about the tremendous impact of Food Connects.” said Kelly Dias, Academy School Principal. “ I'd love to keep up the networking throughout the year with our school-based teams if we can find a way to do so.”

Despite some surprising heavy rains midway through the event, principals were able to connect and learn from each other. Each attendee was paired with another school that had a similar program that they could learn from. From the new Where in the World are We Eating program in Windham Southeast Schools, to the new Farm to School program starting up at Central Elementary School, the full spectrum of programming was represented at the event.

Evelyn Sirois, CEO at Members 1st Credit Union, said that they support the Food Connects Farm to School program because “It enriches our educational practices and emphasizes local involvement in our agriculture." Food Connects is grateful for the fiscal support of Members 1st Credit Union for making this event possible. As a nonprofit organization, Food Connects relies on the generosity of our community donors, like Members 1st Credit Union to hold celebratory events and professional development offerings for our school teachers, administrators, and food nutrition professionals in our community.

The Farm to School Year in Review

Mixing bowls full of tropical fruits and veggies, hot plates frying up potatoes, and new foods abound (think tamarind, hibiscus, and cassava). This past June, Green Street School’s sixth-grade French class prepped mango and avocado salad from Seychelles alongside a hearty Haitian riz colle, in addition to 9 other dishes and drinks to celebrate six years of learning about French language and culture.

Back in October of 2020, this would have seemed impossible. Thanks to dedicated educators throughout the region and Food Connects support, Farm to School scenes like this cooking experience continued throughout the year and helped provide normalcy to an otherwise challenging year.

Many educators saw Farm to School as a means to get students out of the classroom. “Gardening time was an absolute highlight of the day for me and my students,” reflected Molly Stoner, a 4th-grade teacher at Dummerston School. “Students would run out and check for sprouting/growth in their milk jug greenhouses the second they got to school. Later in the spring, adding compost to beds, planting and watering the seed they sown, taking home sprouts enriched us all and kept us grounded in all the potential of our beautiful Vermont land."

This spring, Dummerston planted 12 apple trees donated by Scott Farm Orchard. Many other school gardens expanded as well. For example, Grafton Elementary School added a pumpkin patch to their school garden. Central Elementary School in Bellows Falls expanded its urban growing space and plans to develop a more robust Farm to School program that emphasizes community connections. 

For those feeding our students, the year never let up. Born out of the pandemic, our Who Feeds Our Kids series celebrated the school nutrition professionals who remain the backbone of the school community. Responding to rising food insecurity, they sent out weekend and school break food boxes. With local food from the Food Connects Food Hub highlighted, the food boxes provided another layer of support for families experiencing food insecurity. We’re excited to see the expanded service stay for years to come. 

Food Connects’ flexible support helped schools maintain their programs and respond quickly to new obstacles; when our network schools couldn’t find COVID-19 cooking guidelines, we researched CDC recommendations to create a protocol for educators to follow. We put together 800 sprouting kits for students during the doldrums of late winter, adding some greenery to classrooms and anticipation for more planting come spring. 

“It’s the creativity and flexibility that we saw throughout the pandemic that is going to help us spring forward next year,” says Conor Floyd, Food Connects Farm to School Program Manager.  “We’re excited to continue working alongside our school partners to develop new programming opportunities.”

Planting Day Returns to Westminster

Take your pinky and thumb and spread them apart; press them into the soil, marking two holes. Now drop a sunflower seed in each hole and lightly cover it with soil. Westminster Center School’s Kindergarten classes continued the thirty-year tradition with seeds saved from the previous year’s sunflowers during a cloudy yet deceptively warm Planting Day this past May.

Returning after a hiatus last year due to COVID-19, Planting Day is a school-wide event to get the school gardens ready for the growing season. Every class in the school came out to work with Mandy Walsh, the school’s librarian and Farm to School teacher. Joined by Conor and Laura from Food Connects, Mandy led each class on a tour of the gardens before diving into their project for the day. 

Fourth grade learned how any potato could become a “seed potato” and then planted the “eyes” in four mounded rows. Sixth grade was responsible for planting the corn, and then they got to work watering the rest of the garden, fed the chickens, and looked for snakes in the tall grass. Each grade had a specific crop that needed planting and saw how their efforts contributed to the garden’s success.

Throughout the day, the garden transformed from a tilled patch of soil to rows filled with plants. When students return in the fall, the crops will be ready for harvest. Students will work together to create a Harvest Supper to share with the community and celebrate their collective work.

The Living Schoolyard: Nature, Learning, and Landscape at Oak Grove School

Seeds planted during the 2018-2019 school year at Oak Grove School are bearing fruit as a living schoolyard and a vibrant garden featuring native plants take root on Oak Grove’s campus. Over the past two and a half years, a collaborative process between school staff, parents, students, and administration unfolded, making steady progress in spite of several obstacles. Principal Mary Kaufmann celebrates the project’s success, stating that “the schoolyard has developed into a lovely and welcoming space. Kids love to be outside! The more we have worked on the space, the more time we see classes outdoors.” 

The visioning process for the project began in 2018 as a conversation between then principal Jeri Curry and a group of parents interested in making improvements to the playground. They identified problems including: 

• A lack of quiet spaces for students in need of a less stimulating recess environment

• Outdated play structures and not enough swings

• A lack of shady areas on hot, sunny days 

• Limited choices for a range of play opportunities across all ages, especially pre-K and older students

Every project needs champions, and there are several champions of Oak Grove’s living schoolyard project. This project weathered a change of administrators, superintendents, and facilities manager, as well as a school district merger and a global pandemic. It’s not been easy, but as the rewards start to emerge, it’s worth it. Some of the champions who helped bring this vision to reality are:

• Former principal Jeri Curry. Curry began the project in her final year as principal, acknowledged parents' ongoing concerns about the outdated playground, secured start-up funds, formed a committee, and approved the idea to invest in mapping a long-term, broad scope vision by hiring a designer.

• Current Oak Grove principal Mary Kaufmann. Kaufmann has supported the continued progress on the project’s goals through many transitions and prioritized hiring a school garden coordinator.

• School garden coordinator Tara Gordon. Gordon led the move of the school garden and is connecting the garden to the classroom through meaningful hands-on learning and curricular connections for all students.

• Former facilities manager Greg Frost. Frost supported the garden relocation, built outdoor stump seating and other outdoor classroom spaces, and managed many other project logistics.

• New facilities manager Chad Pacheco. Pacheco continues to support the project as he enters into his new role.

• Academic support teacher Laura Haskins. Haskins leads the Oak Grove Green Team and has been planting trees with students on the playground for many years.

• Fifth-grade teacher Karen DiIorio-Bowen. Dilorio-Bowen has been integrating nature-based education into her curriculum for many years and built part of her curriculum around the living schoolyard this year.

• PTO chair and parent Tara Davis. Davis immediately took a keen interest in the project—standing at the crossroads of parent, neighborhood, and teacher perspectives as a former teacher interested in outdoor education and a neighborhood resident. 

The project began with visioning, which included surveying students, staff, and parents to get feedback on which playground elements these stakeholders wanted to keep and what new ideas people had that could be expanded on and prioritized. As part of this visioning process, the team brought in Nancy Striniste, a landscape designer with a background in child development, to help create a master plan redesigning the playground and school gardens. Certain elements of the plan have already happened, such as:

• Relocating the school garden

• Building a footbridge for creative play

• Creating a new, wider, curved welcoming pathway at the playground entrance

• Building cedar stump seating for the outdoor classroom

A highlight has been the move of the garden. Kaufmann says the garden has “grown and flourished thanks to the work of Tara Gordon and the students at Oak Grove.” Kaufmann notes that students take pride in the work they do in the garden. She sees many benefits in students “being able to be a part of something so beautiful that leads to harvesting and enjoying their hard work.” According to garden coordinator Tara Gordon, “The Oak Grove School garden is developing into a special place abundant with a rich array of perennial and native plantings, garden cultivars and annual florals, vegetables, fruits, and even mushrooms.” These plantings are designed to support and encourage outdoor learning, foster connections to nature, and provide opportunities to learn about the local landscape. Gordon sees garden education as an integral part of the school curriculum and community development. Community engagement has been one of the keys to success—during the fall of 2020, a group of “guerilla gardeners” came together and planted more than a hundred spring bulbs donated by various community members and kept the location of the plantings secret from the students for a spring surprise.

Student involvement is another key component of the project. The school invited all students to participate in the Pennies for the Playground initiative—a program designed to teach the power of the penny. Back in November 2020, tennis ball piggy banks were distributed to all students. As a show of gratitude, students were invited to collect pennies to help support the living playground project. Working with pennies made it accessible for students and families from all economic backgrounds. Collaboratively, the school community has raised $649.34 so far, including $163 raised by a penny challenge organized by Brattleboro Savings and Loan. Students voted recently to spend this money towards another step in the master plan—creating a new digging area won by a landslide. This will be completed over the summer and ready when students return to school.

DiIorio-Bowen’s fifth-grade class has been a key partner in the project this year through participation in the Wild Treasures program, 350 Vermont’s Rewild Vermont project, and a collaboration with Edible Brattleboro to plant additional trees on the campus. Kaufmann says, “The work the fifth graders did this year to learn about the carbon cycle and the environment led to an amazing culminating activity in which plants and trees were added to the playground, bringing more beauty and function to the space.” Karen’s students worked and consulted with Gordon to develop a plant list and placement throughout the school grounds following the master plan. Plantings included a whole array of native perennials, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous pollinator plants. The project's budget also includes an extensive signage collection with artwork and research by the students displayed throughout the gardens. The fifth-grade planting day culminated with a closing circle around the new sugar maple tree. Students placed handfuls of soil around the tree roots along with special wishes they had written on pieces of paper to place into the hole. Together, everyone recited the Earth Pledge and sang the official state song of Vermont, “These Green Mountains.” 

Jen Tourville's pre-k class has also been involved in lots of garden work this year, setting aside time weekly for planting, harvesting, and cooking together with Gordon. They are also enjoying an infusion of local produce into their snack program thanks to a CSA grant from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture.

All classes took part in the project in one way or another, thanks to Gordon’s ability to engage all classrooms in food preparation with garden produce, foraging education in the neighborhood, and a dedication by all staff to get students out in the gardens and onto the living schoolyard regularly.

This project has relied on the incredible generosity of spirit, time, resources, and skills coming from the community. Many thanks to:

• Edible Brattleboro for donating fruit trees and a hickory sapling,

• Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center (BEEC) and local arborist Bob Everingham from All About Trees for donating large cedar stumps for stump seating,

• numerous neighbors and community members who donated supplies for a mud kitchen playspace for preschool students, bird feeders for classrooms to feed birds throughout the winter, and permission to tap maple trees in the neighborhood,

• Heritage Maple Farm for supporting the first school sugaring operation by supplying buckets, taps, and other resources,

• Hamilton Lumber for providing firewood for the wood-fired sugaring operation,

• and the Food Connects Farm to School team for their continued support throughout the garden move, providing professional development opportunities, and a matching donation to the Pennies for the Playground initiative.

Davis made a point of reaching out to the community via Facebook, Front Porch Forum, and casual conversations with neighbors. She believes in creating connections, “especially as we emerge from the pandemic—connection is vital in bringing joy and meaning not only to Oak Grove students but our community at large. Everyone benefits when we work together for the collective good - in this case, the creation of a vibrant living schoolyard that also happens to lie in the heart of the Oak Grove neighborhood.” 

Looking ahead, there are several next steps in the process for the living schoolyard:

• The creation of a sensory path around the playground’s perimeter, funded by a grant from RiseVT, This path will build upon the new bridge, incorporating a living tunnel and a balance trail.

• The construction of an edible mushroom garden along the north side of the building will feature shiitakes and oyster mushrooms. 

• A digging area, funded by the Pennies for the Playground initiative, some mounds for climbing, and some cob construction structures.

Kaufmann sums up the success of the project, saying, “our school grounds are something we take pride in, and the work of the living schoolyard team, the community, and the students and staff at Oak Grove School have made it a wonderful place to be and to learn!” The living schoolyard project actively seeks support from local businesses and community members who want to be involved. For more information, call Oak Grove School at (802) 254-3740 or email principal Mary Kaufmann at mkaufmann@wsesdvt.org.

Guilford Farm to School Thrives on Community Partnership

What does it take to make a successful Farm to School program? At Guilford Central School (GCS), a big part of the answer is community partners. 

Kindergarteners Jared and Jimmy plant a peach tree near the K/1 outdoor classroom.

“The community support that we see at Guilford Central School is amazing. From the dedicated parents on the Leadership Council to parents who donate mulch for our blueberry plants and excavator time to site a shed, it’s really inspiring to see. Our families and community members clearly value the outdoor experiences that our students are having, and they give a lot to support our programming. Our Farm to School and Nature-Based Education programs are thriving and couldn’t have gotten to this point without community involvement,” said Sarah Rosow, the Farm to School Program Coordinator at GCS.

School principal, John Gagnon, agrees, “the success that we have experienced at GCS is due to the remarkable contributions and efforts of our community partners.” He also points to the deeper connection the community has, “capital improvements to our campus and professional development for our staff in best practices in nature-based learning demonstrate the direct result  of the support that our parents, community and local non-profit organizations have provided.”

Guilford Central School is a regional leader in Farm to School—its over 7-year-old program is a shining example of how Farm to School can grow well-grounded students and connect communities. Before the pandemic, students used school-grown vegetables for taste tests highlighting local dishes for the school to try before adding them to the cafeteria's menu. GCS hosted the Holiday Market, where each grade made garden-based crafts and food items to sell to the community. The staff’s gardening and nutrition education experience meant that they were ready to move learning outdoors and get creative about cooking lessons when the pandemic hit.

Fourth grader Arabella chops rhubarb harvested from the school garden for rhubarb muffins.

“We love to cook in Pre-K and try to do at least one cooking project every week. In pre-COVID times we would prep our ingredients inside and then bring them outside to cook over the fire,” reflects Pre-K teacher Emma Hallowell. “This year, we found that preparing food outside was challenging during the cold winter months—those little fingers! But now that it’s spring, we simply set up a cooking station in our outdoor classroom and are having a great time cooking over the fire again.”

The past year has brought communities together in mutual aid and collaboration. This is no exception at Guilford, where countless community partnerships help elevate and grow the gardens, classroom lessons, and nutrition education. 

The gardens continue to grow throughout the school campus, creating new learning spaces for classes and more produce for students to try. The Guilford FTS Program purchased two new raised beds built by Three Trees. Soil donated by Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) and D&E Tree Company filled the beds. Apple trees donated by Scott Farm and plants from Walker Farm and Lilac Ridge Farm will help fill all this new growing space. More trees, berries, and crops also require more maintenance! A rotating cast of parent volunteers supports the Farm to School Coordinator, Sarah Rosow, by weeding the beds, fertilizing the blueberry bushes on weekends, or stopping in with a skid steer to move soil and mulch. Guilford also participates in Food Connects’ Summer Garden Program, which keeps families involved and ensures that the gardens are weeded and watered throughout the summer months. Valuing the importance of the program, the Guilford Country Store has donated additional funds to support the summer garden program. 

A grant from RiseVT allowed the school to install a StoryWalk to encourage classes and community members to get outdoors, take a walk, and enjoy a story. The school purchases books at a discount from Everyone’s Books for the storywalk, on themes ranging from diversity to nature to food and farming.

Food Connects sent sprouting kits to interested classes at the start of spring, getting students excited about the growing season and enabling them to try sunflower and pea sprout taste tests. All the students’ cooking endeavors, from bread on a stick to sweet potato tots, are chronicled in a community cookbook. With more help from Food Connects and printing from C&S Print Shop, every family will be able to take home a cookbook plus a cooking kit thanks to funding from VT Fresh. The hands-on curriculum has proved invaluable during the pandemic, encouraging student engagement and helping build excitement about returning to school after a year of remote and hybrid learning. 

Thirty pounds of salad greens from Milkweed Farm, ready to be bagged up and distributed to families along with salad dressing recipes for the May Harvest of the Month kit.

The school has highlighted local food in meals for students. Recipe kits were sent home with students that featured local ingredients such as salad greens from Milkweed Farm and maple syrup donated by Franklin Farm. Students get to enjoy Franklin Farm beef year-round in the cafeteria, thanks to their partnership with the school. 

Each contribution from the community helps build up the robust Farm to School program students currently enjoy. As Guilford looks towards the future, there’s excitement for more to come. “As COVID restrictions are lifted,” says Sarah Rosow, “we’ll be looking to get families even more involved in the gardens, to generate more community involvement around our new sugaring program, and to re-establish our Winter Market.”

John Gagnon only sees growth in the future for the program, “we are very grateful and excited to continue this journey with our community partners in an elementary school that nurtures a love and respect for our natural environment.”

Guilford Central School is a small elementary school in Southern Vermont serving 120 children from Pre-K - sixth grade. The Guilford Farm to School program enables students to regularly spend time working in the school gardens, cooking, composting, and visiting local farms. From monthly taste tests of healthy, locally sourced foods that are prepared and served by students in every grade, to tapping trees and boiling sap, GCS students are connected with Guilford's farming heritage. 

Raised Beds Return to BAMS

Brattleboro Area Middle School (BAMS) teachers Jess Montenieri and Elyse Wadsworth wanted to see more opportunities for students to engage in outdoor learning. Reflecting on the past year, Elyse noted that “it's been difficult to see students spending so much time on Zoom with very little opportunity to move around, go outside and just be kids. We saw the raised beds as a great way to get students outside, even if it's just for a daily watering and check-in.” 

Jess and Elyse found energetic partners on the newly formed BAMS Leadership Team. Parents Amit Sharma and Sheila Humphreys were thrilled to see some of the strong Farm to School programming present in the elementary schools make its way into the middle school. 

More BAMS parents, Jacob Leach and Sam Schneski, offered to pitch in with some carpentry know-how, connections with local sawmills, and some donated supplies. Quickly, this team formed a plan to build new raised beds on the campus, the first step towards a more robust outdoor education program for the school.  

Parents, staff, and a few students gathered on a cool spring day, ready to get to work. Over the next couple of hours, they built four new raised beds, filled each with compost donated from Windham Solid Waste Management District (WSWMD) and Renaud's Tree Care, and planted starts donated from Walker Farm. A couple weeks later, 7th-grade students decorated the beds with their artwork. The beds now feature kale, brussels sprouts, beets, carrots, and many different types of herbs. 

The team planted primarily fall harvest crops—meaning easy summer maintenance and a bountiful garden ready to welcome students back in September. Jill Kelley, the Brattleboro Enrichment Activities for Middle School (BEAMS) Director, also joined in the build day and plans to incorporate maintaining the beds into student activities during summer camp. Next year, students will try to prepare the vegetables a few different ways, experimenting with the new foods and finding the dish that is just right. 

BAMS Principal, Keith Lyman, helped construct the beds and is excited to see more opportunities to get kids learning outdoors in the coming years. 

“We are always looking for new ways to engage students and families in our school community, and I am so proud of the work everyone has done to begin this work,” Keith said. “The more we can get kids outside learning through the world around them, the more likely we will have happy and engaged students. The gardens are beautiful, and the student artwork made the plain wooden walls come to life! I look forward to the fruits (or vegetables) of our labor!”

In the meantime, keep an eye out for the new raised beds next time you're driving by BAMS. They’re a hopeful sign of more to come!

Cafeterias Unknown: Talking Trash with the Leland & Gray Environmental Action Force

What’s one of the best ways to ensure Farm to School becomes an integral part of school culture? Welcome students as partners and leaders in the movement. It’s always a goal when introducing Farm to School and is a big focus of our upcoming Farm to School Conference. The keynote address and one of the workshops are all about engaging students. 

Because of all this, I quickly accepted the offer from the Leland & Gray Environmental Action Force (LEAF) to join them for lunch the Friday before winter break. I was excited to hear what they’ve been working on and to share some ideas for tackling food waste in their school. 

Before meeting with advisors, Mary and Chris, and the students, I swung by the cafeteria to grab lunch and chat with Food Service Director Chris Parker. I was recently a judge for the local Junior Iron Chef competition and we caught up on the regional teams that will be headed to the statewide competition next month. The recently renovated cafeteria was bustling with students getting made-to-order sandwiches, making their own salads, and the main entree for the day.

With my plate loaded up with a BBQ Chicken Sandwich, corn salad, and more veggies from the salad bar, I headed back up to Mary’s classroom for the LEAF meeting. By the time I got there, they were already deep in discussion but were happy to backtrack for me. 

So, what’s LEAF been up to at Leland & Gray? They’ve been deeply involved in climate change activism in their community and statewide. Students traveled to Brattleboro and Burlington for panel discussions and protests. Regularly, you’ll find students outside with signs during lunch, raising awareness of climate change issues locally and keeping it on people’s minds. The group also manages the school’s compost system and has been supporting sustainable school practices such as buying reusable utensils for the cafeteria. 

The group was also receptive to the idea of digger deeper into food waste reduction. A lot of the strategies proposed in Food Connects’ recent grant focused on working with Food Service Directors, but engaging with student groups is arguably the best way to shift school culture. LEAF is going to start with a food waste audit to measure how much food waste is leaving the cafeteria and then evaluate what the best next step is. 

We also talked about the upcoming Farm to School Conference and the group was excited to join. Mary, Chris, and a group of LEAF members decided to sign up. Having an engaged student presence at the conference and in the workshops will benefit everyone in the room! Students are often a stakeholder group that is absent in Farm to School conversations but can add depth to school partnerships when they’re involved. 

We had covered a lot of ground in a small amount of time. Abruptly, the bell rang and ended our conversation. I looked down at my plate, I had taken one bite of my sandwich! Luckily, I didn’t have a class to get to and Mary let me finish lunch in her classroom. The impossibility of a 25-minute school lunch becomes clear when you have experienced it for yourself. 

Leave class, get to the cafeteria, chat with a friend, wait in line, get your food, find a table, socialize and eat your lunch (without cramming!) all in 25-minutes—good luck! 

But, that’s a topic for another time.

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!