Category Archives: school visits

Donna Martin’s #FarmtoSchool Success in Burke County, Georgia

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2017-04 Policy To Plate Donna

Donna Martin, EdS, RDN, LD, SNS, addresses the 2016 Policy to Plate meeting in Washington, DC

On June 1, 2017, Donna Martin, EdS, RDN, LD, SNS, FAND, became President of The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the world’s largest organization of food and nutrition professionals. In this prestigious volunteer position Donna will lead over 100,000 credentialed practitioners including registered dietitian nutritionists, dietetic technicians, registered, and other dietetics professionals, into the second century of the Academy – focused on a global vision of “A world where all people thrive through the transformative power of food and nutrition.”

Stirring White Acre Peas
Lunch trays at Waynesboro Primary

Donna’s day job is equally important: She is Director of the School Nutrition Program for Burke County Public Schools, Georgia. Donna’s passionate belief in the transformative power of nutrition is deeply felt in Burke County, which has one of the highest rates of child poverty in the US. She has brought local produce – and local whole grain grits – into the cafeterias and started farmers markets for families and school staff. Her work to transform school nutrition in rural Georgia was recognized the White House and, in April 2016, First Lady Michelle Obama and Al Roker visited Burke Middle School to help plant the school garden. Her efforts to reduce food waste and support local farmers were recognized with top honors in the 2016 Georgia Organics Gold Radish Awards.

Middle School Parfaits
Charlie Cart Cooking Lesson

I was fortunate to visit Burke County Schools in April 2017 to personally see (and taste) the fruits (and veggies) of Donna Martin’s labors. My day started with a delicious grab-n-go breakfast Yogurt Parfait featuring blueberries, strawberries and bananas at Burke County Middle School, followed by a classroom Charlie Cart nutrition-cooking lesson. The fourth graders made delicious mini-strawberry shortcakes from scratch – with local berries, of course. My next stop was the best – a Georgia Grown lunch at Waynesboro Primary School, featuring local White Acre peas, collards, strawberries, cornbread, chicken and milk. This was Southern school food at its best and, if you are ever near Waynesboro, Georgia, I highly recommend that you visit for lunch.

Waynesboro Lunch

Waynesboro Elementary School Georgia Grown School Lunch

Donna Martin has long been a role model for everyone in the Georgia School Nutrition Association. Now she is an inspiration to all Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics members who want to be actively involved in transforming food systems across the country and around the world.

You can follow Harvest Bright, Burke County’s Farm to School Program on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

 

#SchoolLunch is GREAT in GREELEY

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Blog 0 Shayla

First grader Shayla chooses flavorings for her egg pop. 

There are three great reasons to share my recent visit to Greeley-Evans School District 6 in Colorado. First, there has been lots of recent attention to school lunch acceptability and food waste related USDA school meals nutritional standards. Secondly, it is School Nutrition Employee Wellness Week culminating on May 5, with School Lunch Hero Day. And, finally, farm to school remains one of the hottest trends in school meals.

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Greeley Central High School salad bar is well-loved. 

Greeley-Evans School District 6 Nutrition Services is dedicated to getting delicious school food into hungry kids. In a district with 22,000 students (67 percent eligible for free or reduced meals) located in a population-boom town (4th fastest growth in the US), everything starts in a 12,000 square foot central production facility where nearly 100 percent of the district’s meals are prepared from scratch and sent out in bulk to schools. On my tour with district Chef Matthew Poling, I saw pallets of local Colorado red-skinned potatoes, boxes of frozen local, grass-fed beef, and 50-gallons drums of canned tomatoes direct from a California farm – as well as a commercial-sized chili roaster and a walk-in cooler of fresh produce. Why then do I have a photo of a messy salad bar with half empty containers? Because the high school students took – and ate – the produce. When I arrived at Greeley Central High School, it was standing room only on the Tierra Del Sol line. They actually they ran out of the burrito that I wanted for lunch (I did not go hungry; I enjoyed a Fuego Cheese Steak from the famous El Fuego Food Truck).

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Greeley-Evans School District 6 celebrates all their school lunch heroes. 

Before I ever entered a school, Director Danielle Bock gave me my very own School Lunch Hero Day button (distributed to every team member this week). During our tour, Danielle and I started with egg pop tasting in Chappelow K-8 Magnet School’s cafeteria at 7:30 AM and ended at a student-run coffee kiosk in Greeley West High School at 2:30 PM. During the intervening hours, I met dozens of school nutrition heroes – serving pancakes with mixed berry compote, explaining their Dance Party kits from the award-winning Student Wellness Program, scrubbing potatoes in the central kitchen, customizing sub sandwiches for teens, working the El Fuego Food Truck (and preparing my lunch), and sampling coffee with teen entrepreneurs at their student-run business.

Blog 4 Egg Pop

Director Danielle Bock helps Chappelow students choose flavorings for their egg pops. 

Greeley-Evans School District 6 is also a National Farm to School Network super-star – nearly 25 percent of their food purchases are local, with the rate increasing each year. The Greeley-Evans School District 6 Farm to School goals are ambitious and obviously achievable!

  • Continuously expanding local produce offerings during breakfast, lunch and in Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Program sites
  • Sourcing milk from local dairies
  • Integrating locally-raised beef and chicken into meals
  • Expanding and improving school garden programs
  • Increasing Farmer in the Classroom and Chef in the Classroom programming
  • Partnering with other Northern Colorado school districts to develop efficient and effective systems, like the USDA-funded District 6 Food Hub, to work with local producers

My day at Greeley-Evans School District 6 Nutrition Services was filled with enthusiastic school nutrition heroes, satisfied student customers, fresh food served with a smile, and support for the new frontiers of school food: think egg pops, food trucks, house-made hot sauce and coffee kiosks for teen entrepreneurs. I salute every staff member – and hope I can go back for lunch soon!

Blog F2S 4

For details about these farms and links to their social media, go to goo.gl/ZUrbNR

Hot Supper Meals at LA Unified

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This is no April Fool’s joke. I am rebooting the School Meals That Rock blog – starting with my spring visits to school districts around the country. I may throw in a few other school food-related topics as 2017 moves along. If you have an idea you’d like me to cover, just post a reply below and I promise to respond as soon as possible.

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1-Outdoor EatingSupper programs are one of the newest USDA Child Nutrition programs – and they sometimes do not get the same level of coverage as the more familiar breakfast and lunch programs. They are, however, critically important to the at-risk children that receive them. If they did not have a supper meal at school, this students might very well eat snack foods from a corner store, a fast food dinner, or – in the worst-case scenario – no supper at all.

2-Fabi CartOn March 16, I had the privilege of seeing hundreds of hungry children enjoy the fuel they needed for afterschool homework and other enrichment activities. Los Angeles Unified School District Food Services Division (LAUSD) has rolled out a hot supper service in over 100 schools with more in the works, including Belvedere Elementary. Located in East Los Angeles, Belvedere has wide airy hallways decorated with murals and a staff dedicated to providing students what they need to become: Thinkers. Leaders. Changemakers. Every one that I met – the assistant principal, the school foodservice staff, the afterschool teachers, parents and children – was enthusiastic about the hot supper meals. Since beginning the hot options, supper participation has more than doubled and waste has decreased markedly.

LAUSD uses a variety of packaged hot items, along with milk, fresh fruit and veggies, which are easily delivered by carts at several sites in the hallways and outside eating area. All the hot and cold supper items meet LAUSD’s strict nutrition guidelines and are popular with their customers. It was such a pleasure to see LAUSD’s hot supper program in operation at Belvedere Elementary. I was impressed by the efficiency of the school nutrition staff in serving hundreds of hungry children – giving them plenty of time to enjoy their meals while chatting with friends and family members. This program is working because of the commitment by the entire school community to insuring that at-risk students received the nourishment they needed for the afternoon and evening. With LAUSD’s dedication to the highest quality food options, Belvedere’s food services team was clearly feeding bodies and fueling minds with smiles on their faces.

3-Dayle RocendoMy sincerest thanks to Ivy Marx, LAUSD Senior Nutrition Specialist, and Rocendo Gonzalez, Belvedere Cafeteria Manager, for hosting my visit to Belvedere – and for nourishing children well at school. Next time I visit LAUSD, I would love to meet Joseph Vaughn, the new Director of Food Services, so that I could thank him personally for this innovative and successful hot supper program.