The end of a year often promotes reflection. We have made tremendous progress since Vermont FEED started in 2000 before the term "Farm to School" was even coined. Today, more than half of Vermont schools are engaged in Farm to School programming and VT FEED is considered a leader in the national Farm to School movement.

These are great accomplishments, but we have a long way to go. Much of our food still travels great distances before reaching our plates, and many children have lost a connection to the land. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, overweight and obesity remain the most common childhood medical conditions in the US.    

School food systems are complex and changing children's food habits is easier said than done. To be most effective, we must focus on a range of activities over time and place. There is no single "best practice," nor is there a magic bullet that can make children eat "right." Our 3C model focusing on classroom, cafeteria, and community helps promote program sustainability and build capacity for lasting food system and behavior change. 

Vermont FEED's success is because of our commitment to collaboration and this multifaceted nature of Farm to School. Attitudes and knowledge are not formed through a single intervention, or even a single class; they develop over extended periods of time and are based on experience in a wide range of contexts. This is where Vermont's Farm to School Network steps in. Every community needs a Farm to School champion but he or she can't do it alone. In 2012, one of our goals is to strengthen the Vermont Farm to School Network and build on the momentum we have created to reach more Vermont schools.

We're on the right track... Here's to the start of a New Year!

Vermont FEED Team: Anne Bijur, Danielle Pipher, & Abbie Nelson

Amy Gifford has a mission to get more healthy foods into kids. The problem as she sees it, drawing on over 10 years experience working with schools on gardening and nutrition programs, is that most children no longer have a relationship with food. In March, Amy became Richmond Elementary School's part-time Farm to School Coordinator and is building on a successful program started three years ago by Karyl Kent, the school's Food Service Director and a small group of dedicated parents.

Karyl started with a simple premise: food should taste good and be recognizable. Basically, kids should enjoy school food. She started serving local foods in the cafeteria and teamed with parent volunteers to do taste tests. Now that there is a part-time employee on board, the Richmond Farm to School program has become more robust. There are monthly taste tests, students are regularly invited to participate in harvest and food processing activities, and cooking classes are offered in the school's enrichment program. Also, as part of a joint effort with Camel's Hump Middle School, a school garden was created last spring and the students grow some of their own produce for the cafeteria.

Karyl Kent and Amy Gifford prepare a taste test for Richmond students

 Amy's goal is to make sure that students' experience with food is not isolated to the cafeteria but connected to different parts of the school and their lives. She organized a weekly Farmer's Table at school where different farmers come to sell produce and educate the students about their farms. Richmond students learn about entrepreneurship, marketing and value-added foods as they sell their school-made pesto, bread, and soup at the town Farmer's Market. After tropical storm Irene devastated some of Richmond's local farms, Amy, Karyl and the Farm to School Committee organized a fundraiser as part of the school's Harvest Festival. The money raised was given to three of their farm partners who provide food for the school cafeteria and field trip opportunities for classes.

Amy's challenge is that the Farm to School program is primarily dependent on volunteers and needs to be self-sustaining. It is also difficult to convince teachers to incorporate farm, food, and nutrition education into an already crowded curriculum.Her goal is to make the Farm to School position full time at the Supervisory Union level to provide more time to work with teachers and to leverage larger buying power of local produce for more schools.

When asked for advice for other schools just getting started with farm to school programs, Amy advises to start small and focus on where you can be successful while also getting noticed.

Amy remains optimistic about the future of the program. "Richmond is an outstanding community," she says. "The parents are very supportive of farm to school, the cafeteria is already on board, and the farmers understand the importance of building a new generation of people who will want their food."

Welcome to Anne Bijur 

Anne Bijur recently joined FEED as Communications and Outreach Coordinator. Anne comes to us from renewable energy manufacturer AllEarth Renewables where she was Marketing Coordinator. "I'm so happy to be back in the education world," Anne says. "Vermont FEED's mission of creating healthy food systems is critical today as we fight childhood obesity and the loss of people's connection to the land."

Previously, Anne served as Shelburne Farms' Sustainability Coordinator helping the Farm align its operational practices with its commitment to sustainability. She also coordinated Vermont's Education for Sustainability Project, a multi-stakeholder effort to integrate sustainability into Vermont's education standards and provide professional development to teachers around sustainability concepts.

Goodbye and Good luck to Libby McDonald and Jean Hamilton

Vermont FEED would like to thank Libby McDonald for her energy and dedication over the past three years as our Administrative Manager. Her enthusiasm and sense of humor will be sorely missed. She is now pursuing a Nurse Practitioner degree and, we are happy to report,  will continue to help us by organizing the Junior Iron Chef Competition in March of 2012.

Jean Hamilton has worked at NOFA-VT for four years as the Direct Marketing and Consumer Access Coordinator. She joined the VT FEED team to work on Farm to School workshops and bring local food to schools. Jean will be pursuing a graduate degree in Food And Beverage Management in Milan, Italy. She plans to return to Vermont in a year with knowledge, skills, and olive oil to share!

Just Announced - Additional Round of Farm to School Grants This Spring 

The Vermont Agency of Agriculture has recently announced an additional round of Farm to School Grants available this spring. Stay tuned to the VAAFM website for more details coming in February. 

Vermonters Celebrate Farm to School Month 

This October was the first national Farm to School Month. As a statewide Network, we joined forces to promote activities that celebrate healthy classrooms, communities and cafeterias in style. Danielle Pipher, our Education Coordinator, hit the road to document and join in the celebrations with schools and communities from Burlington to Brattleboro.

Menu featuring local foods

The celebration kicked off with an incredible "Local Lunch for Dinner" event at the Sustainability Academy in Burlington's Old North End. Food Service staff, Shelburne Farms Sustainable Schools Project and the Burlington School Food Project teamed up to serve a local-foods-inspired meal, promoting strong partnerships, community support and Vermont's 1st ever CSA-inspired School Farm Share.

Collaboration is a key element in building strong, sustainable Farm to School programs. This was exemplified at Barre Town Elementary and Middle School's garden project "Barre Town Crops by Kids" launched this spring. This project was made possible by the hard work and dedication of many, especially the Physical Education Teacher, Susan Barnard. On Tuesday, October 11th, the administrators staged a school wide fire drill, concentrating the entire student body by the garden and surprised Susan with a spontaneous garden dedication ceremony to honor and celebrate her hard work and vision that nurtured and inspired the project.

Barre School community waits to surprise teacher Susan Barmard

Thetford Elementary School has a close relationship with neighboring Cedar Circle Farm. Every fall several classrooms spend time at the farm learning from farmer and education coordinator, Cat Buxton. During Farm to School week, students picked pumpkins, harvested carrots, and pressed apple cider while learning about integrated pest management, heirloom bean varieties, and compost. They also toted back a case of freshly harvested carrots for the school cafeteria.  

Thetford students visit Cedar Circle Farm

For the last stop on the tour, Danielle celebrated with Brattleboro's Green Street School at their Farm to School Open House Night. The Windham County Farm to School Coordinator, Katherine Gillespie, showed the newly released "Building a Healthy Food System: One Bite at a Time" film and shared their Vegetable of the Month campaign and local food resources. Food service staff served a cream of broccoli soup taste test and the students lined the hallways with Farm to School art. They even had hip-hop dancing and hula-hooping!

Twirling hula-hoops at Green Street School's Farm to School Open House

Many other Vermont schools cooked harvest meals and held taste tests, school Farmer's Markets, and open houses. It's clear that Vermonters really know how to celebrate healthy food, farms and communities! Can't wait until next year...

•  Webinar: Farm to School and Farm-Based Education   
• January 10th, 1:00-2:00  
• Farm to School Awareness Day and Network Forum 
• January 25th, Champlain Valley Expo, Essex Junction, VT  
• NOFA-VT winter conference  
• February 10-12th, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT 
• Massachusetts Farm to School Convention 
• March 15th, Old Sturbridge Village, Sturbridge Mass     
• ABC's of Farm-Based Education - Project Seasons Workshop 
• March 9-11th, Shelburne Farms, Shelburne, VT 
• Junior Iron Chef 
• March 24th, Champlain Valley Expo, Essex Junction, VT
• Just Announced! National Farm to Cafeteria Conference, more details coming soon.
• August 3-5th, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT