Local wheat in school pizza? It’s back to class for Oregon farmers

May 062013
 
Photo by John Valls

Photo by John Valls

Farm to School typically brings to mind fruits and vegetables — a bowl of bright red apples, or a salad bar station. But for Tom and Sue Hunton, owners of Hunton’s Farm and Camas Country Mill, located southwest of Junction City, Farm to School means freshly baked rolls, springy pizza dough, and supple tortillas, all made with their own locally grown and processed grains. This is the second year that the Bend-LaPine School District has sourced flour from the Huntons.

This February, Tom and Sue joined other Oregon farmers, food processors, school district staff, and food security advocates in Salem to voice their support for expanding the Farm to School and School Garden Program. This was one of serious of hearings on Oregon House Bill 2649, which, if passed, would bring $5 million dollars to Oregon school districts to support Farm to School initiatives that help bring healthier, local foods to the lunchroom and provide kids with invaluable food and farm education, both in the classroom and through hands-on experiences.

HB 2649 will compensate school districts around the state up to 15 cents per meal for buying Oregon grown and processed foods. Tom looks forward to expanding their reach within the school food market. The day following their testimony, the Huntons received an order from the Bend-LaPine School District for 12,500 lbs of Hard White Spring Wheat flour and 2,500 lbs of Club Wheat Pastry Flour, which they believe is the single largest order they have ever received. The passage of HB 2649 has the power to seed partnerships that can sustain and grow Oregon agriculture.

The Huntons also offer experiential education to students through farm and mill tours. A sign in their fields designates plots for the school district, and students can visit the wheat as it grows. State funding will allow new opportunities for partners like the Willamette Farm & Food Coalition to develop educational materials and programs that give more depth to students’ hands-on experiences.

Legislators say they love Farm to School programs, but they haven’t committed to funding them, so they need to hear from you! How can you help bring more local foods and garden-based education to schools statewide? Call, email or attend an event this month!

Click here to get more information on how to contact your legislator, and where, and when public budget hearings are taking place!

Learn more about the Huntons and others involved in forging a local grain economy in Edible Portland’s spring article, Grist for the Mill.

Upstream Public Health and Ecotrust are among the nonprofits leading the charge to grow Farm to School and School Garden funding in Oregon. Learn more about Ecotrust’s Farm to School program at www.ecotrust.org/farmtoschool.

True story: How a fish went to school

Apr 102013
 

Julie Mack, Healthy Active Schools Coordinator for the Centennial School District, was looking for fish. She needed enough for a district with a student enrollment of 6, 700 and it had to be caught or processed in Oregon.

Enter FoodHub.

Mack searched the online directory FoodHub, Ecotrust’s network that connects food buyers and sellers. She found Lyf Gildersleeve of Flying Fish Company. Gildersleeve fishmongers from a 176 square foot shack on Southeast Hawthorne in Portland. He set Mack up with an order of cod filet from Astoria.

Mack is using a $29,033 grant from the state Department of Education to bring more local foods into school cafeterias to expand food choices and help support local food producers. She presents new, locally-based dishes to the district on Wednesdays through the middle of May. That cod from Astoria featured once last month and will return to the plates again on April 22.

Centennial is one of 11 Oregon districts receiving a total of $189,000 in grants through a Farm to School bill passed by the 2011 Legislature. Ecotrust research made the case for that bill. Since 2007, Ecotrust has also been active in connecting schools, farmers, and other producers as the Western Regional Lead agency for the National Farm to School Network.

The new grants not only support purchases from farmers but fishermen as well, through what is becoming referred to as “Boat to School.”

FoodHub directly connects schools with local food distributors, like Flying Fish Company. Photo: Lyf Gildersleeve

FoodHub directly connects schools with local food distributors, like Flying Fish Company. Photo: Lyf Gildersleeve

Stacey Sobell, Farm to School Manager for Ecotrust, recently pointed out to OPB’s Ecotrope that grants play a key role in making more local food available to schools, and establishing the connections between all sorts of new producers and large local buyers like schools.

 Sobell said “center of the plate” protein items are a new focus for schools looking to serve local lunch food, and seafood is gaining traction in a handful of schools nationwide.

“This is a big new area that’s really taking off,” she said.

FoodHub and Farm to School are central to Ecotrust’s efforts to build a resilient food system that offers fresh, healthy food to all residents, economically viable food value chains that fairly compensate and respect the dignity of all participants, and methods of food production that renew our resources.

Flying Fish Company is the sort of company that forms the heart of that system.

Recently one of four nominees for Edible Portland’s Local Hero Award in the Retailer category, Flying Fish was first opened by Lyf’s father, Craig Gildersleeve, in 1979 in Sandpoint, Idaho. The family business now has branches in Colorado, Utah, and Oregon.

Flying Fish was recently one of four nominees for Edible Portland's Local Hero Award in the retailer category. Photo: www.flyingfishcompany.com

Flying Fish was recently one of four nominees for Edible Portland’s Local Hero Award in the retailer category.
Photo: www.flyingfishcompany.com

Flying Fish’s mission statement reads, “We would never sell anything we wouldn’t serve at our own dinner table.” They’re the kind of small business that can leverage FoodHub’s marketing and networking tools to find buyers like Centennial.

In addition to selling responsibly harvested seafood, including Oregon Dungeness crab and Oregon albacore tuna, the company also offers grassfed meat, including beef, lamb, pork, elk, and bison. Their specialty products range from hand-churned butter to wasabi. To continue stocking the shelves when seasonal products run dry, Flying Fish is now selling products like smoked salmon, sauerkraut, soup, crab and salmon cakes. Gildersleeve said he’ll be looking to FoodHub to help stock that supply chain as well.

New Farm to School grants put local foods in Oregon students’ lunches

Jan 252013
 

This semester, school lunch for nearly 60,000 Oregon students is transforming thanks to an infusion of local food and food education.

The Oregon Department of Education has announced that eleven school districts are the recipients of competitive Farm to School and School Garden grants totaling $189,140. The majority of the funds (87.5%) will be spent on purchasing Oregon food products, with a smaller portion (12.5%) dedicated to food-, agriculture-, and garden-based education activities.

Local food is on the lunchline and garden programs are on the rise in Oregon, thanks to new Farm to School funding from the state. Photo by Shawn Linehan.

The funding goes to diverse districts and schools across the state, from the tiny rural community of Joseph nestled in the Wallowa Mountains, to Oregon’s second largest city, Eugene, in the heart of the Willamette Valley.

Representative Sherrie Sprenger (R-Scio) says,

 As a former school board member, and a State Representative, I am excited about how these grants can help both kids and farmers. In Lebanon, this grant will help students learn about growing and eating healthy food, including beef and pork from our very own high school FFA program.”

The grant program is the product of House Bill 2800—the Farm to School & School Garden Bill—passed by the Oregon State Legislature with unanimous support in 2011.

Districts receiving funding are: Bend-La Pine, Bethel, Centennial, Eugene, Gladstone, Joseph, Lebanon, North Powder, Ontario, Roseburg and Sherman. (See below for details.)

The districts are building partnerships with diverse Oregon food producers and processors.

In the Bend-La Pine School District in central Oregon, the grant funding will launch a Boat to School program, connecting school food buyers with coastal fishermen to bring Oregon shrimp and fish into lunch at all 27 district schools. In Ontario, next to the Idaho border, grain farmer Rene Corn will not only begin selling her whole grains to a local mill to grind and make breads, rolls, pizza dough and buns for school meals, she’ll also teach students about her farm and how to mill flour.

At the Lebanon High School Land Lab, FFA students will raise cattle and pork. Thanks to the grant funding, the students will build a business module for processing the meat and a sales and marketing program to sell to the Lebanon School District, which is excited to support student ingenuity and to bring this hyper-local protein into its meals.

Emerging research shows that Farm to School programs generate local economic growth. When schools strengthen connections with Oregon food producers and processors, they create and maintain jobs for Oregonians. In fact, a study by Oregon State University economist Bruce Sorte shows that for every Oregon job directly created by school districts purchasing local food, additional economic activity creates 1.67 more jobs.

Everybody wins with Farm to School,” says Kasandra Griffin of Upstream Public Health, “from farmers and ranchers to the folks working at the diners, farm supply stores, and supermarkets in rural Oregon.”

Research also shows that children who spend time in the garden are more likely to eat and enjoy fruits and vegetables. The legislation and grant program intentionally pair local purchasing with education. Students who spend time in school gardens learn better, behave better in the classroom, and get physical activity, which is significant at a time when one in four Oregon adolescents are overweight or obese.

Gardens provide an opportunity to integrate lessons in science, math, reading, environmental studies, nutrition, and health,” adds Oregon Department of Education Farm to School and School Garden coordinator Rick Sherman.

The Farm to School and School Garden grants support more equitable access to healthy food for lower income families. In 2011, 49.1 percent of Oregon students received free and reduced lunch, determined based on their family income.

This investment not only shows the state’s commitment to food justice for our youngest citizens, but also to supporting Oregon’s great food producers, many of whom also struggle to stay afloat without viable markets for their goods,” Stacey Sobell, Farm to School Manager at the nonprofit Ecotrust says.

The eleven districts’ pilot programs are paving the way for school districts around the state to implement effective, proven Farm to School and School Garden programming in the future. Reflecting on their goal to establish and strengthen relationships with Oregon coastal fishers, Bend-La Pine Nutrition Services director Katrina Wiest notes,

We want to the share lessons learned and ultimately lessen the learning curve for other districts.”

All the districts must spend their grant funding by the end of the school year and report back to the Department of Education on how their projects unfolded. Representative Brian Clem (D-Salem) and House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-North/NE Portland) are pushing to expand Farm to School funding with a new $5 million bill during the 2013 Oregon legislative session to expand the benefits of these programs to more kids, farmers, and other food producers and processors throughout Oregon.

Highlights from the Winning Districts’ Farm to School Grant Proposals

Bend-La Pine School District Awarded: $27,327 (16,326 students)
This semester, Bend-La Pine’s “boat to school” program will set sail to procure fish from Oregon aquaculture for school lunch, strengthening the district’s relationship with Oregon’s coastal economy.

Bethel School District (Eugene) Awarded: $26,420 (5,654 students)
Oregon-grown items will take center stage at the center of the plate, and comprehensive Farm to School education and supplemental food and resources to families will encourage rousing student approval.

Centennial School District Awarded: $29,033 (6,159 students)
Scratching the pre-packaged foods, this district will create locally sourced lunches, served every Wednesday, and enhance innovative promotional efforts that encourage students to dig into healthy local foods.

Lane County School District No. 4J (Eugene) Awarded: $29,033 (16,030 students)
The district has plans to buy tofu from Surata Soy Foods and tortillas and corn chips from Northwest Mexican Foods (Carmen’s), adding even more local flavor to a lunch that includes fresh produce from the school garden.

Gladstone School District Awarded: $11,223 (2,120 students)
For the first time, the district will purchase food directly from a local vegetable farmer (who will also sell to a school for the first time!), laying the groundwork for an intentional, long-term relationship.

Joseph School District Awarded: $2,334 (248 students)
The school garden will become a better-utilized outdoor learning environment, and grass-fed beef from nearby ranchers will appear in school lunch to fuel the active garden learners.

Lebanon School District Awarded: $23,742 (4,200 students)
Agricultural education will go into hyper drive as FFA students build a business module for processing the beef and pork they raise and a sales and marketing program for selling to the food services department.

North Powder Charter School Awarded: $2,764 (283 students)
A host of activities, from maintaining the school garden to attending farm field trips, inviting chefs to classrooms to hosting community dinners, will expand the horizons of students’ food and farming knowledge.

Ontario School District Awarded: $7,143 (2,417 students)
Ontario farmer Rene Corn will teach students about grain and how to mill it, and work with a local bakery to mill her harvests and make whole grain breads, rolls, pizza dough, and buns for the district.

Douglas County School District 4 (Roseburg) Awarded: $29,033 (6,344 student)
The construction of a new learning garden will give teachers a supplemental classroom, engage students in activity out of doors, and give meaning and context to the new local items on the school menu.

Sherman County School District* Awarded: $1,087 (241 students)
A school district green house will become the home of a hydroponics system providing vegetables for school meals.

*Sherman was the only recipient to receive funding exclusively for garden-based programs rather than procurement, due to the district’s extremely remote location and lack of distribution options.

To learn more about the individual grant proposals and grant program details, please visit www.ode.state.or.us/go/f2sgardens, or contact Rick Sherman, Oregon Department of Education, Farm to School and School Garden Coordinator, 503-947-5863 (desk), Rick.Sherman@state.or.us.

A carrot for tots — how to kick-start healthy eating

Dec 072012
 

Ecotrust co-leads a national Farm to Preschool initiative  and launched an Oregon Farm to Preschool Coalition last year. Coalition members Dr. Betty Izumi of Portland State University and Dawn Barberis of Mt. Hood Community College’s Head Start program, developed the Harvest for Healthy Kids project, featured in the video below. Their goal is to disseminate their model curriculum widely and conduct statewide trainings across Oregon.


Legislators taste a whole new lunch

Nov 022012
 

To celebrate Farm to School Month, dozens of Oregon legislators headed to school cafeterias this October to check out what’s new on the menu.

Why did these legislator lunches take place? Statewide funding and legislation is key to growing Farm to School efforts in Oregon. House Bill 2800, passed in 2011, provides just under $200,000 in statewide funding to bring more Oregon-grown and processed foods into school lunches and support food, agriculture, and garden-based educational activities. Starting last week, school districts have the opportunity to apply for this funding to expand their Farm to School efforts.

Congressman Kurt Schrader (D, District 5) and Representative Brian Clem (D-Salem, District 21) eat a fruit- and vegetable-filled lunch with students after touring the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation’s (SKEF) Learning Gardens at Grant Community School.

Although the $200,000 will be awarded to just a few Oregon districts as part of a pilot program, Ecotrust research shows that every dollar spent on Oregon-grown and -processed foods has a significant multiplier effect on Oregon’s farming and processing industries.

In 2013, a growing group of Farm to School advocates will return to the legislature to ask for an expanded $5 million Farm to School grant program. These advocates, co-led by Ecotrust and Upstream Public Health, invited legislators to lunch to showcase the real impacts that Farm to School and school garden programming have for hungry kids and hard-working farmers in their communities.

Healthy school lunch gives young Oregonians – including the large number who experience food insecurity – a daily, balanced meal. Garden-based education helps increase children’s food literacy and teaches life-long healthy eating habits. Farm to School supports regional food economies and creates new markets for Oregon farmers.

Ecotrust helped organize three lunches: at Cascade Elementary in the Lebanon Community School District, Centennial Learning Center (CLC) in the Centennial School District, and Grant Community School in the Salem-Keizer School District. Increased funding from the state will allow schools like Cascade, CLC and Grant to sustain and expand their innovative programming and allow more schools across Oregon to develop successful programs.

Legislators get a taste of how school lunch is changing
On Food Day, October, 24, Representative Sherrie Sprenger (R-Scio, House District 17) toured Cascades Elementary. Student guides gave a tour of the district’s Planting Seeds of Change edible teaching and production gardens, which produced 800 pounds of food for the school meal program and a local hospital last year! (Learn more about the visit in this Democrat Herald story.)

On October 26, Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson (D–Gresham, District 25) and Representative Greg Matthews (D-Gresham, District 50) visited Centennial Learning Center. They experienced their innovative lunch program, which incorporates farm fresh produce. In August 2012, the district began incorporating a weekly share of vegetables from Dancing Roots Farm into its school lunches. All students learn to cook in the culinary program, which prepares breakfast and lunch daily for the school. Centennial Learning Center was also the first school in Gresham to pilot composting food scraps.

Senator Laurie Monnes Anderson (D–Gresham, District 25) and farmer Brian Dickerson of Dancing Roots Farm listen as Conrad Schumacher, Centennial Learning Center chef and teacher, describes the lunch they are about to eat, prepared by CLC students using vegetables from Dancing Roots.

Rep. Greg Matthews (D-Gresham, District 50) points out what’s on the menu for lunch at the Centennial Learning Center, highlighting vegetables from Dancing Roots Farm. He is flanked by the Oregon Department of Education’s new Farm to School Coordinator Rick Sherman, FoodCorps fellow Emily Ritchie, principal Jamie Juenemann, and the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School Specialist, Michelle Ratcliffe.

On Halloween, October 31, Congressman Kurt Schrader (D, District 5), Representative Vicki Berger (R-Salem, District 20), and Representative Brian Clem (D-Salem, District 21) ate school lunch at Grant Community School. They joined Food Service Director Dave Harvey; representatives from the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, and Ecotrust; and elementary students to tour the school garden, learn about the school’s composting program, participate in an apple taste test, and experience how the district is changing what students eat and how cafeterias source food. (Learn more about the visit in this Statesman Journal story and this Capital Press story.)

A raised bed in the Salem-Keizer Education Foundation’s Learning Gardens at Grant Community School overflows with abundant fall produce. Students at Grant report that kale is one of their favorite vegetables (!) – they turn it into tasty kale chips with School Garden Coordinator Brenda Knobloch.

FoodCorps service member Chelsea Thomsen and Salem-Keizer Education Foundation School Garden Coordinator Brenda Knobloch serve tastes of several varieties of Oregon apples to students in the cafeteria at Grant Community School.

From left: Representative Brian Clem (D-Salem, District 21), Representative Vicki Berger (R-Salem, District 20) and Congressman Kurt Schrader (D, District 5) check out the composting setup in the cafeteria at Grant Community School in the Salem-Keizer School District.

Photos by Stacey Sobell.

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