Farm to School goes district-wide

Promoting healthy eating habits, local foods

Factory food took over most American schools in a rolling, greasy wave of chicken nuggets and highly processed everything over the last few decades. Now obesity and childhood diabetes reach epidemic proportions across the United States and family farming is facing the greatest decline of all occupations in America.

In response, Farm to School programs popped up to support healthier school lunches. Finally, real ingredients, fresh food, and spices like cumin, cilantro, and garlic are making their return to the cafeteria tray, and kids are learning about where their food comes from.
When classes start on Monday, the Mountain Roots Food Project Farm to School Program and the RE1J District make a great leap forward—and at the same time back to the way it was done a generation ago—in cooking meals from scratch, sourcing more food locally, and reconnecting kids to the source of their food.
Simply providing occasional fresh food is not enough to create lasting changes in the health of our children, area farms, our community, local economy, and the environment. In August 2010, Mountain Roots Food Project launched the Farm-to-School program at Crested Butte Community School (CBCS).
Beginning with a contract for Parker Pastures grass-fed beef, Farm to School volunteers tackled menu changes that include more fresh, local, and made-from-scratch items. Individual bottled waters were banned, as were sugar-laden Yoplait yogurts.
Students are now enjoying homemade granola, Colorado yogurt and fresh fruit parfaits, homemade breakfast burritos, homemade focaccia, whole wheat pizza crust, rolls, muffins, cookies, and other breads. House-seasoned chicken wings replaced preservative-heavy processed wings; meatloaf and lasagna made from local grass-fed beef replaced Salisbury steak. Nix those deep-fried crispitos (whatever they are) and bring on the Diamond F Ranch tamales. Remember Red Velvet cake? These days, it’s made with whole wheat flour and colored with beets!
Mountain Roots Farm to School even found an all-pork, nitrate- and nitrite-free hotdog, which is made just for CBCS. Volunteer “market managers” work closely with the head cooks to plan and evaluate menus, source organic and local foods from alternate producers, and promote the positive changes both within the school community and to the public.
Participation in the lunch program increased nearly 30 percent on CBCS local foods days, and more parents came to eat with their children. This drew the attention of the district —the lunch program is constantly under scrutiny considering the recent budget cuts. More children eating lunch generates revenue for the district, and might enable the district to keep the lunch program from being eliminated.
Mountain Roots Food Project’s Farm to School coordinator, Holly Conn, explains the key points behind Farm to School Program: “First, it is about bringing fresh and locally grown and homemade food into school cafeterias, so it tastes good, and is truly nutritious. Second, we believe it provides good market opportunities for local producers to increase volume of their sales and to make sales year-round. So it’s about local food systems and rural economic development.” Third, she said, farm-to-school programs help connect people with where their food comes from, how it’s produced and by whom. “Children are very disconnected from agriculture … literally thinking food comes from a grocery store,” Conn said. But Mountain Roots Farm to School Program transforms the lunchroom into a classroom.
For 2011-12, Farm to School supports RE1J’s new Harvest of the Month Program, which presents a new face to the district’s lunch programs, featuring a different fresh produce item each month paired with nutrition education and physical activity topics. On the third Thursday of every month, there will be Local Food Lunches in CBCS, Gunnison Community, and Gunnison Lake Schools, where every item on the lunch tray is local, fresh, organic, or homemade. Throughout the year, Farm to School will offer classroom demonstrations, know-your-farmer, taste testing, vermicomposting, superfoods week, field trips, and other opportunities for nutrition education to supplement classroom studies.
The Farm to School Program won a grant from the Great American Salad Bar Project for a salad bar at CBCS. A salad bar is one of the fastest ways to create access to fresh food for all students. “When children are offered more fruit and vegetable choices, they’re more likely to try new things,” Conn says, “and, if they learn about the farmer that grew those vegetables, or better yet—if they grew the food themselves—they’re more likely to take these good food choices into their daily lives.”
Getting kids to grow their own food is another of the Mountain Roots Food Project’s goals. In May, students, teachers, and project members converted a 2,400-square-foot triangle on the south side of the CBCS campus into the Living Classroom—an outdoor classroom where children explore nature and grow their own food – and built a Youth Garden at the Gunnison Community Center. The learning gardens are vibrant outdoor classroom that spark imaginations, nurture healthy lifestyles, and develop environmental stewards of the future. Summer camps helped plant the food and kept the gardens growing over the summer, and now an abundance of organic, fresh food is ready for the cafeteria.
District food service manager Pam Neary and Gunnison head cook Laura Henry recognize the potential that Farm to School has to bring the lunch numbers up while improving the health of the students. Both recently attended LiveWell Colorado’s five-day Culinary Boot Camp for school chefs, and returned armed with skills for made-from-scratch cooking and some tricks of the trade, like adding sautéed fresh vegetables to marinara sauce. Neary has applied for a grant through LiveWell Colorado to purchase the equipment necessary to prepare healthier items. “We have many new recipes to integrate into our breakfast and lunch programs. We will be taking baby steps throughout the school years to come, to teach our kids healthier eating habits,” Henry explained.
Support from the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley helped get the program off the ground, but community involvement and parent volunteers fuel and sustain the Mountain Roots Food Project Farm to School Program. Farm to School is actively fundraising and seeking donations to continue to provide local kids with local food and the knowledge to make healthy food choices for a lifetime. “We all want our kids to be happy and healthy,” says Conn, “but national legislation and funding for farm to school programs and school gardens may take years to find its way into schools. We want to act now, and we can’t do what we do without our volunteers or community support.”
Parents, teachers, and community members are invited to get involved with the Farm to School program. “We need more ideas, more parents taking a pro-active role in their kids’ educations,” urges Conn. “You can harvest greens for the salad bar, write an article about whole grains, put together a recipe book, or just give us money!” she laughs. “We’re new, so even a small job or contribution makes a big difference.”
Monthly meetings will be held in both Gunnison and Crested Butte. Visit www.mountainrootsfoodproject.org to donate or for more information about getting involved. For more information on the Colorado School’s Harvest of the Month program, visit http://www.d11.org/fns/harvest.htm or contact info@mountainrootsfoodproject.org.