North Carolina’s Farm to School Partner, Craven County School District, celebrated Farm to School Week this past April! The special awareness week provides an opportunity to connect local farmers, students, teachers, and school nutrition professionals into the daily curriculum. The connections also help to support both farmers and schools with supply chain challenges and promote and support locally grown foods. As part of Farm to School Week, middle and high school teams competed for the best farm to school cheer!
“From the school café, cheers could be heard, “Go, fruits! Go, veggies! Get on your feet! Give me something good to eat!," said School Nutrition Director Lauren Weyand with Craven County Schools. She added that the event was very exciting and educational for all.
Craven County School’s Nutrition Program featured locally sourced foods that were utilized in recipes as part of the week’s school meals. North Carolina farmers
and farm producers were profiled on the Farm to School menus and spotlighted on videos that were shared in the classrooms and social media. In addition, teachers had digital books and Ag in the Classrooms lessons to share with students each day highlighting the locally grown foods.
As part of Farm to School Week, high school student chefs, used locally grown foods to compete in a cook-off sponsored by Craven County Schools, the N.C. Farm Bureau, The Dairy Alliance, N.C. Egg Commission and N.C. Sweet Potato Commission. Student chefs competed in four categories – best entrée, best side dish, best dairy recipe, and best sweet potato dish. The student-created recipes will be featured on future school menus.
In addition to the integration of locally sourced foods, Craven County Schools collaborated with the Career and Technical Education Department to implement Farm-To-Table activities and generate student community engagements with local farmers.
USDA’S Community Food Systems (CFS) Division works with Farm to School partners throughout the Southeast region to increase the availability of local foods in FNS’ Child Nutrition Programs, promote hands-on learning activities such as gardening, farm visits, and culinary classes, and encourage the integration of food related education into regular, standards-based curriculum to help children make lifelong healthy eating choices.
Farm to School Grant Program | Food and Nutrition Service (usda.gov)
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