Spring 2005 FEED Newsletter
Spring 2006 FEEDNewsletter
Spring 2007 FEED Newsletter

Fall 2007 FEED Newsletter

Spring 2008 FEED Newsletter



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News Items- VT FEED

Food Works Hiring Part Time Food, Farm and Nutrition Educator

Times Argus covers the VT FEED workshop in Montpelier

Burlington Free Press Video on the Jr Iron Chef Competition

Eric Schlosser Speaks on Food in Burlington

Anson Tebbets and Abbie Nelson on Ag Radio for Jr Iron Chef (mp3)

Watch Eva Sollberger's "Stuck in VT" video:

Farm to School in the News

Shelburne Community School

Ferrisburgh

Farm to School Grant Winners

Twinfield

WSJ- "Summer Camp as Food Relief" (registration required)

 

Check out clips from our Farm-to-School video, "Grow up Fresh!"

Introduction:

 

Community:

 

Cafeteria:

Classroom:

 

 

VT FEED 2006-2007 Schools

 

Vermont FEED, the leading Vermont Farm-to-School program is busy working with many rural Vermont communities. In Spring 2006, the Vermont legislature passed Act 145 which allowed for state money to assist with schools' farm-to-school programs. Vermont FEED consults with the recipients of the grant.

 

 

Here are just a few examples of how schools are “planting” healthy
learning opportunities for students:

Orleans-Essex Supervisory Union (Jay/Westfield Elementary School, the Lowell Graded School, and the Holland Elementary School)

CLASSROOM
On farm field trips students have harvested onions and corn, milked cows, picked apples and blueberries, and connected to their local food sources. Students at the schools have built and maintained school gardens and participated in hands-on cooking activities through the Planting Seeds of Change after-school program.

CAFETERIA
The three schools have spent over $3,000 on local food purchased from 18 different local producers. The local foods have been integrated into the regular school food program and in over 18 local food recipes developed by the school food staff. Monthly taste tests conducted by the food service, teachers, and students, have gauged the student response to the new foods.

COMMUNITY
Each school celebrated local food, farming, and community at Fall Harvest Festivals. Activities at the festivals included: apple cider pressing, local food taste testing, tractor parades, produce competitiions, games, and music. A Farm-to-School Calendar highlighting farm-to-school activities, local food recipes and farm sources was sold at each school as a fundraiser to support local food purchasing in the school food program.

For more information about the OENSU Farm-to-School Program, contact Katherine Sims, District Coordinator at ksims@northcountryschools.org

Rumney School

CLASSROOM
Rumney School in Middlesex is offering a weekly snack featuring local produce, and creating the snack in a different classroom each week.

CAFERTERIA
The school food director is purchasing greens from a local farmer and serving fresh salads and local vegetables in the cafeteria every day.

COMMUNITY
Rumney will be celebrating this successful grant with a community fall harvest dinner in November where proceeds will be used to purchase more local foods and to support the Middlesex Food Shelf.


Barre Town Middle and Elementary School

CLASSROOM
Barre Town had the Farmer's Diner owner come and spend a day at school talking to our Family Consumers Science classes, a major soup contest with eight graders with fifth graders as the judges, and a new Cooking for Life class for sixth graders after school.

CAFETERIA
Barre's Crops By Kids garden produced swiss chard and lettuce for use in the cafeteria to make a great white bean and swiss chard soup. A local chef volunteered his time to look at how Barre's kitchen set up and gave a detailed report on how to redesign the kitchen.

COMMUNITY
The eighth grade winners of the soup cooking contest will go on television and be broadcast to over a million people! In addition, a Service Learning Project engaged students to visit farms and they will report back to our community with large posters for display in our dining room.


The Burlington School Food Project

CLASSROOM
Burlington classrooms have been taking advantage of trips to the Intervale this fall. Ten different classrooms from four different Burlington Elementary schools, including Champlain, HO Wheeler, Edmunds and Barnes visited Healthy City Youth Farm this fall and participated in Harvest Field Trips and trips to Lucky Ladies Chickens, owned by farmer John Cleary. These field trips are connected to the Burlington science curriculum as a kick off to a unit, or a complement mid way through. Teachers and Students have been excited to take advantage of this great opportunity in their backyards.

CAFETERIA
Already this year, Burlington Schools Food Service has processed and/or served over 6,000 lbs. of local produce in the schools’ salad bars and lunch lines, including local basil, broccoli, green beans, strawberries, zucchini, lettuce, mesclun, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and carrots.

COMMUNITY
The Burlington Food Council is an open community group which includes farmers, parents, Burlington School District employees, students, researchers, and health and nutrition experts and has met monthly since 2003 to improve the farm to school food system and food, farm, and nutrition education in Burlington, Vermont. Past events and activities have included a benefit contra dance co-sponsored by City Market, a Great Veggie Giveaway that bagged and distributed almost 3000 pounds of carrots, potatoes, and cabbage to Burlington schoolchildren, and a recent opening-night benefit performance of "American Machine" by Burlington playwright Jim Lantz. In these ways, the Food Council helps to connect the Burlington School Food Project to local farms, businesses, City of Burlington departments, and not-for-profit organizations interested in a healthier Burlington.

 



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Vermont Food Education Every Day (VT FEED) is a community-based
approach to school food system change in a rural state
through a collaboration of three Vermont non-profits: Food Works,
Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont, and Shelburne Farms.

CONTACT Vermont FEED
Kim Norris, VT FEED Co-Director, 802-238-3585
knorris@shelburnefarms.org

Abbie Nelson, VT FEED Co-Director, 802-434-4122,
abbienelson@comcast.net

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