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Greetings!
Greetings from Vermont FEED. As February wraps up, we are grateful to have caught up with many of you at the NOFA Winter Conference and Children's Conference. Danielle Pipher, who pulled together the incredible Children's Conference with 75 kids, was able to highlight the local food that Burlington School Food Service provides to their students everyday, using
fresh, local ingredients from Vermont
farms.
Farm to School has been all over the media recently and Vermont's own Sharon Elementary and Vermont FEED were featured on ABC News. We've had many fun events lately including Burlington School Food Service's Lunch for Dinner at Champlain Elementary and look forward to Jr. Iron Chef VT just around the corner on March 27. Also, read below about an opportunity to help secure funding for 2011 Farm to School Grants.
We hope you are enjoying the coming of spring however you celebrate it!
Warmly,
The Vermont FEED team
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Sharon Elementary and Vermont FEED Featured in National News!
Farm to School has been getting a lot of press lately, and Vermont's own Sharon Elementary was featured in ABC News in an article called, "Farm to School Program Changes Kids' Views on Food:
Farm to School program plants seeds of healthy eating in kids".
In the article, Anupama Joshi, director of the Farm to School program, based at the Center for
Food and Justice at Occidental College in Los Angeles. says, "Vermont has really taken [Farm to School] on in quite the most holistic way and not
just in a couple of school districts but statewide," said Anupama
Joshi.
Congratulations, Sharon! Check out the article here. |
Stories from the Field
Champlain Elementary- Lunch For Dinner Event
 Burlington School District along with Vermont FEED and the Champlain Elementary PTO hosted Lunch for Dinner at Champlain Elementary on February 11. In 2009 Burlington School Food Service purchased over $49,000 worth of product directly from local farms. Did you know when food is purchased through conventional supply chain, farmers receive only 20 cents of every food dollar that consumers spend on food? When purchased directly upwards of 70 cents per dollar goes to the farmer. * Burlington buys 10% of its total purchases directly from farms.
More than two hundred students and family members joined for dinner to eat what the students eat each day for lunch. The evening's dinner featured Arethusa Farm Collective carrots,
Champlain Orchard apples, Green Mountain Meat Company beef, Healthy
City Youth Farm green beans and Red Hen Baking Company bread.
*USDA, NASS "Agricultural Prices," 2009
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2011 Farm to School Grants Update
 Since 2007 the Farm to School Grant Program has provided an average of 11 schools each year with funding to integrate fresh, local food in Vermont Cafeterias, Classrooms and Communities. This program has served 13,730 students, 35 schools in 13 counties, trained over 3,000 in Farm to School and involved more than 120 farmers.
Farm to School Grants are not in the 2011 state budget. Vermont FEED is working with the Senate and House Agriculture and the House Appropriations Committees to not only fund the grant program in 2011, but also to create a permanent place in the state budget for annual Farm to School Grant Program funding. Please contact your legislators to let them know you support Farm to School Grants.
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Jr. Iron Chef VT is Coming Right Up
March 27, 2010
Champlain Valley Expo
 This year, the 3rd Annual Jr. Iron Chef VT has grown to over 60 teams of
Vermont high school and middle school students. More teams, more local
ingredients, more awesome farm and food activities...you don't want to
miss this delicious fun! Check out the website for up to date news and preparations.
Want to be part of this event? Join the fun as a volunteer by signing up on our web page.
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Vermont FEED
A collaboration of three Vermont non-profits:
Food Works at Two Rivers Center, NOFA-VT and Shelburne Farms
PO Box 697
Richmond, VT 05401
www.vtfeed.org
802.434.4122
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