Beets Galore: The Full Circle of Farm to School

I have finally discovered it: the essence of being the FoodCorps service member at Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center (MMFEC) in Ronan, Montana. MMFEC is pretty unique among FoodCorps sites: we’re a fully inspected and certified community-based food processing center. In terms of both geography and relationships, we’re positioned between the Western Montana Growers Cooperative (WMGC) and some of the biggest and most committed K-12 buyers of local food in Montana. Not only do we have the equipment to process fresh fruits and vegetables, we have staff who are knowledgeable and experienced in food safety and product development.

This placement means that I am well situated to carry out FoodCorps’ mission of connecting kids to real food. This February, I did just that: I guided a healthy, local product from the farm into classrooms on a large scale.

It all started with a perfect storm of beets: growers had an abundance of them and they are FoodCorps members’ favorite Valentine’s Day vegetable. Over the winter, I leveraged our processing staff’s expertise to develop new beet products—different cuts, frozen raw cubes, and roasted cubes. For the more complicated products, we had to go through the somewhat arduous process of developing a Method of Production and HACCP (Hazard Analysis at Critical Control Points) food safety procedure.

In early February, I rallied orders for beets from schools in WMGC’s distribution area. FoodCorps members in other school districts bought boxes to use in the classroom or cafeteria. Kalispell and Polson bought roasted beet cubes to serve as a cooked Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) snack. Enthusiastic school food service staff make it possible for local growers to sell to schools: Jenny Montague, the Food Service Director in Kalispell trusts and buys most products WMGC offers, and JB Capdeville, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Coordinator in Polson is bold with the new products she brings into her FFVP snacks. With eight willing buyers for orders of all sizes, WMGC dropped off 775 pounds of local beets, MMFEC processed them, and WMGC distributed to the schools.

Many times, my involvement with helping schools procure local product has ended here: in the school kitchen. This time, though, I took a couple more steps to bring students a deeper experience with the local food in their classrooms. Working with champion teachers in each grade at Linderman Elementary in Polson, I scheduled beet lessons with eleven classes. A local farmer—Nicole Jarvis of Ploughshare Farm—visited each class with me. Her four year-old daughter passed around beet seeds for students to examine as we discussed how beets grow. Nicole even led the fourth graders in some beet math, asking them to calculate how much space on her farm it took to grow the beets for their class—and their school!

Beets were a (potentially scary) new vegetable for most of the students, so we first made sure everyone understood the “don’t yuck my yum” principle and then promised a fun sticker to whoever tried at least two bites of beets. Every student raised his or her hand, holding a beet cube high into the air, and cha-cha-cha-ed, “we love remolacha!” (that’s “beet” in Spanish) then bit into the roasted purple vegetable. Pretty much everyone joined the Two Bite Club that day, and there were many rave reviews.

The farmer grew the beets. The farmer came to the classroom to eat the beets she grew with students. And I got to orchestrate all the steps in between. This is what it means to be a FoodCorps member at MMFEC: facilitating the full circle of farm to school.

This article was written by Nicki Jimenez, the talented FoodCorps member serving in Ronan and Polson with the Mission Mountain Food Enterprise Center.

Singing Silly Songs

In past posts, my fellow FoodCorps service members have mentioned getting a little silly while teaching in the classroom, garden or cafeteria in order to get students excited about fruits and veggies. I must admit, I’ve followed their lead.  It might be the goofy camp counselor in me, but I LOVE to sing. I love to sing songs with hand motions, repeat after-me, clapping, etc. Most importantly, I love to get my students singing, especially when it’s about food.  

In my own educational experience, I know I have learned much that I cannot recall. However there are a few things I will never forget, including:  the quadratic formula, ALL of the prepositions, what a palindrome is, and the French alphabet.  A seemingly random assortment, but I learned each of those concepts in song. How often do we find ourselves humming a popular radio tune from 2005, yet we can’t quite recall the name of that book from English class in that same year?   Songs stick.

          Teaching nutrition and garden lessons in an after-school program doesn’t always lend itself to detailed projects or worksheets. Students have been sitting and learning all day, and like anyone else, they want to move! They do not want to listen to a lecture on plant parts. 

          Quite frankly, neither would I.

          So at the Lockwood Boys and Girls Club, we sing. A lot. Our students are smart, but their attention span is shorter than normal after a full day of school. Singing is quick and easy, and as far as I can tell, a great way to learn.

 Just the other day I started with a new group of students for our weekly after school cooking club. We usually make easy to prepare foods that students can replicate at home, like smoothies or homage ranch dressing, but on this particular day we were preparing a sweet potato chili to serve at the Boys and Girls Club annual chili cook off! One of the club members is also in a 3^rd grade class that I see regularly in the Lockwood Elementary School, where the Boys and Girls Club is located. I teach in both locations to reach a wider range of students, and those I see in both locations are great helpers when it comes to teaching other club members, since we sing songs in the classroom as well. As I presented the ingredients for the chili we would be making, she pointed at the carrots.

“I LOVE carrots!!” she exclaimed. “Remember when we tried them and sang that song?” She was referring to the Plant Parts Song that I had taught her class in conjunction with a plants part salad we prepared.

          I decided to test her a bit and asked, “Of course! Do you remember what plant part the carrots were?” I watched her do the hand motions while she mentally ran through the Plant Parts Song in her head. I could almost hear her thoughts, “Roots…Stems…Leaves…Flowers…Fruits…Seeds…”

“ROOTS!” she cried.

I smiled. Mission accomplished.

This blog post was written by Maggie Harkins, the FoodCorps service member in Billings, MT where she is making cooking healthy foods fun for the kids at the Boys and Girls Club. 

Cooking up a Healthy School Food Legacy

Since January, the scent of freshly baked pumpkin bread wafting through the halls has become a weekly occurrence at Hyalite Elementary School. I often hear students and teachers wonder out loud: “What smells so good?” “Where is that smell coming from?” or “Who is baking bread?”

The mouth-watering aromas are the result of a new approach to a popular Hyalite tradition: the snack table.

A fundraiser and business project, the snack table was started by fifth grade teacher Danny Waldo as a way for the fifth grade class to raise money for a “Legacy Project” –a contribution to Hyalite that will outlive their time at the school. The students choose food items to sell at the table, determine prices and handle the money. And this year, for the very first time, the fifth graders are in charge of cooking and preparing the snacks as well. And they’re learning that healthier foods mean bigger profits, too!

Every week, students in the Cooking Club devote their lunch-recess to learning how to cook healthier, homemade foods to serve to their peers in place of the processed, sugar-filled snacks sold in years past. Working in small groups, they crack eggs, measure flour, mash bananas and blend chickpeas. As a FoodCorps service member, I support the students by organizing supplies and answering questions as needed, but the cooking is all student work. As they create food masterpieces from scratch, these students learn that making healthier choices in what they eat is fun. Or, as they often say, “I love to cook! I’m going to bring this recipe home to make with my mom!”

The Cooking Club members have learned to be food critics and adjust recipes for the less mature taste buds: “This hummus has too much tahini; let’s add more lemon juice.” Or, “The banana bread is too dry. I think we need to add more yogurt next time.” But the learning doesn’t end there. Over the course of just two months, I have witnessed improvements in teamwork and increased confidence with recipe reading, measuring and math, and leadership. And behind the table every Friday, these students who participate in creating the snacks are better salespeople. They now have a connection to what the food is and where it comes from, and they are able to share this information and excitement with their peers to increase sales. Just last week, I heard my student exclaim to his group of friends, “I made these pumpkin muffins yesterday! They are so good!”

Is it working? The numbers speak for themselves. During the 2012 - 13 school year, the weekly profit was $20-$25. This year, our weekly profits average $75-$80; just last week we made $77 selling homemade pumpkin bread, pita chips and hummus, peanut butter oatmeal bites, and 100% juice!

At first, many fifth graders did not understand the success. “But Mr. Waldo, can we sell maybe just two types of candy next week?” And Mr. Waldo and I would explain that resuming candy sales would be detrimental to their profits and to their ability to set a positive example for their peers. Many other students pleaded for us to bring back the candy and processed snacks of the past as well, and younger students in particular hesitated during the first few weeks after the unfamiliar, homemade goods appeared. But now, two and a half months later, students rush with excitement to purchase the “new foods” every Friday before they sell out.

These changes at Hyalite are taking place during a very important and exciting time regarding national school food regulations. Recently, the USDA published the Smart Snacks in Schools nutrition standards, a component of the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010, as a guideline for what snacks can be marketed and sold to children at school. The standards aim to continue improving school food environments by promoting healthy options and limiting sales of junk food. These regulations, which impact school fundraisers like our snack table, will be enforced over the next few years. This puts Hyalite at the forefront of this transition.

My experience working with the fifth graders and the net profits of snack sales are evidence that healthy fundraisers can be successful. Sure, more time and effort goes into preparing foods like hummus and pumpkin muffins, but the pay-off is worth it: my students are learning valuable life-long skills that will help them on a pathway to a healthier lifestyle. Additionally, with the weekly nutrition lessons I teach, offering nutritious items enables us to send a consistent message to the students and allows them to practice making healthy choices in a safe environment. Just as USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack urged in a recent press release, through our Hyalite snack table we are helping to “make the healthy choice, the easy choice for America's young people.”

No matter what Legacy Project our fifth graders choose to fund this year with their snack table earnings, they will be leaving behind an even greater legacy at Hyalite: they will be remembered as the class who improved our school food culture by demonstrating that preparing and eating healthy foods is fun.

Written by FoodCorps service member Erin Jackson, engaging kids in hands-on, delicious real food education in Bozeman, MT.