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VT FEED publishes its ninth farm to school resource and creates database of school meal distribution

August 4, 2020

Since 2000, Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED) has worked with schools throughout the state, “to grow robust farm to school programs, acting as a catalyst for rebuilding healthy food systems, and cultivating links between classrooms, cafeterias, communities, and local farms.” A significant part of the nonprofit’s work has been the publication of farm to school resources, which with the publication of Connecting Classrooms, Cafeterias, Communities: A Guide to Building Integrated Farm to School Programs now number nine.

The 130-page guide, which is a free download from VT FEED’s website, “is an updated compilation of earlier resources and offers new approaches and tools to help your school community successfully grow your farm to school program,” it states. The guide is part of a national wave of farm to school programs: according to the USDA Farm to School Census, “programs have grown from a handful of schools in the late 1990s to nearly 43,000 schools in all 50 states today, reaching more than 20 million students.”

The benefits of farm to school, the guide reports, are realized in a number of important areas: economic development, public health, education, the environment, and community engagement. And where, according to VT FEED, do these benefits originate? In the school cafeteria. The cafeteria “can be the largest classroom in the school because it is a powerful educational environment connecting with every student. Farm to school programs demonstrate that nutrition and the cafeteria are integral to the school day and the education of the whole student.”

The guide includes extensively researched chapters on developing an action plan; maintaining staying power through school culture, wellness polices, and coordination; the aforementioned central role of cafeterias in purchasing and incorporating local foods and improving cafeteria environments; educational benefits; and working with farms and other community partners.

“VT FEED has found that the most successful programs are not ‘add-ons’ (separate programs that run outside the regular policies, systems, and curricula of a school), but integrated throughout school culture,” the guide states. “Ideally, farm to school can link school wellness policies, nutrition programs, curriculum reform efforts, family-school-community partnerships, student voice, nurse, guidance, and after-school programs.”

As I compose this blog during this unprecedented time, schools nationwide have closed and students who have relied on farm to school programs to meet their nutritional requirements are in their homes, trying to learn remotely while maintaining dietary health. Yet VT FEED has not stood idly by while the success of its programs is challenged by external events. Working with Hunger Free Vermont, VT FEED’s Important Resources During the COVID-19 Crisis features a regularly updated database of Vermont of schools' plans and schedules to distribute meals.

“In this stressful time, no one should be concerned about having enough food at home,” VT FEED states. “If your family lost pay, you’ve been laid off, or work hours in your household have been reduced, you may now be eligible for nutrition programs that are designed to help your family and our local economy quickly in unexpected and emergency situations like this one.”

School districts with updates to the database are urges to contact Vermont FEED Program Director Helen Rortvedt at helen@nofavt.org.

By Robert Kropp, NERC Office Manager

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