BRATTLEBORO-It's all about home grown and home cooking for Windham Southeast Supervisory Union (WSESU) school meals this year.
The change to an independent, in-house school nutrition program came after decades of working with commercial food service management program Fresh Picks of Manchester, New Hampshire.
"The shift allows us to build a program that is rooted in our community values - prioritizing scratch cooking, using more local foods, and creating menus that are nourishing, appealing, and accessible to all of our students," says Food Program Coordinator Susan Grabowski, noting that all students will continue to eat at no cost, thanks to Vermont's Universal School Meals law.
"But with the new program, we have greater flexibility to make meals that reflect our community's needs and tastes," she says, adding that the goal is to source at least 15% of food locally, excluding milk. "Which supports Vermont farmers and producers while strengthening our food system. We will also feature local Miller Milk [from Vernon] at some of our schools."
Grabowski, Director of School Nutrition Harley Sterling, Assistant Director of School Nutrition Kelsey Baumgarten, and a team of culinary rock stars have been working to get the program ready to serve up to 2,000 meals daily for eight of the supervisory union's schools in Brattleboro, Dummerston, Guilford, and Vernon when school starts Aug. 27. Putney Central School has been providing in-house meals for some time.
"It's a labor of love. Wednesday is going to be amazing," says Grabowski of getting ready for the students, adding with clear glee three words: "Homemade. Organic. Pizza crust."
"It's a little crazy this week, honestly," says Sterling, who came to the job in March after serving as school nutrition director for the Windham Northeast Supervisory Union since 2018. "But we're going to get there."
Sourcing local and cooking in-house will cost a little more this year, however.
At the start of the year, school Business Manager Frank Rucker had said a $2.6 million food service budget - $204,000 over this year's budget - "is realistic."
That number includes some transitional costs, such as buying a delivery van and technology equipment and hiring the director, for a total of about $70,000.
Vermont leads the way in independent school nutrition programs, with 65% of schools operating without food service management companies and the claim, as described in the district's announcement of the program in January, that "these programs are more likely to achieve higher local purchasing rates and have stronger connections to farm-to-school initiatives, as well as boost student participation, support local farmers, and ensure program sustainability" ["WSESU will manage food service for schools in three towns," News, Jan. 14].
"We do expect the program will be more costly than in past years, largely because we are supporting a substantial staff who are essential to making this vision a reality," Grabowski says. "That said, we are fortunate to have some deferred revenue from Covid, and our high-volume summer meal kit distribution also brought in reimbursement funds that will help stabilize the program."
For each meal kit distributed to a child, the district will be reimbursed for seven breakfasts and lunches.
"Those resources, combined with careful planning, give us confidence that we can build something sustainable," Grabowski says.
Building on summer success
Sterling and company have just ended a wildly successful and first fully independent Summer Food Service Program. Through this project, nutritious meal kits were available to children whether at camp or at home.
Since launching in late June, participation grew to more than 1,500 kits in week six, a new daily distribution high for the state of Vermont. On average, WSESU distributed more than 1,200 meal kits each week, totaling more than 80,000 breakfasts and lunches this summer.
While nerves are running a bit high this week, Sterling and his crew are using the summer success as a springboard.
"We just ran one of the largest summer food programs in Vermont state history and we started it from scratch," he says. "It was a lot of team-building and getting the wrinkles out. Everybody's a little nervous for the school year, but that's understandable, and having this huge body of work under our belts gives everybody extra confidence going into the challenges of the new year."
Sterling said that confidence comes from having "already done something pretty historic - over 150,000 free meals for kids this summer that also employed 20 people who would have collected unemployment otherwise. And 20% of that was local Vermont products purchased right in this area."
Superintendent Mark Speno lauded the summer program as well as Sterling's and Grabowski's efforts leading the new school meal program.
"We couldn't be prouder of the work our team has accomplished," he writes in the start-of-school newsletter. "As we look toward the school year, we're bringing the same creativity and care into the cafeteria."
Halal nachos, 1,000 muffins, and everything in between
This year students and teachers can expect to see many more items made from scratch, from pizza crust to Alfredo sauce, and made with Vermont-grown and produced ingredients.
Starting this week the food service program at Brattleboro Union High School (BUHS) and Brattleboro Area Middle School (BAMS) will pilot a new halal nacho bar at lunchtime.
"It's a burrito bowl and nacho bar that will feature halal foods prepared by our staff from Afghanistan, with a daily rotation of vegetables and proteins and halal fish," says Sterling. "I'm a huge proponent of 'Let's do something awesome that happens to meet all of those specifications.' I don't like to just make substitutions; I like 'Let's make it its own thing that's awesome in itself.'"
"We used to have the nacho bar once a week," says BAMS Chef Noah Gillard."Now that it's every day, the line is going to be out the door."
He adds that now students can also enjoy chocolate milk once a week.
"They're going to go crazy for that," Gillard says.
The transition to in-house food service has been in full swing for months, and by Monday morning this week the kitchen that serves BAMS and BUHS was humming with a great, upbeat vibe.
"Most of the staff have been preparing all summer to roll out scratch cooking for the school year," Grabowski says. "The kitchen site leads even took turns throughout the summer making a meal for the whole crew - and every one of those meals was made from scratch."
She says for the start of school she expects the cafeteria to serve close to 1,000 muffins daily.
"And we hope that number will grow as the year progresses," she says. "We are offering a lot of different breakfast options, such as breakfast sandwiches, yogurt parfaits with scratch-made granola, and, of course, cereal, which, for some children, it's all they eat."
Baumgarten and most of the staff members have come to work in the district from Fresh Picks and are loving it here.
"It's a lot of meals to prep for and we have new computers and ordering systems, but we have a great team," she says.
"Our staff is the front line," Grabowski adds. "This program is not just about feeding kids; it's about building pride and connection. Our staff are excited to showcase their skills and creativity, and we're already seeing the energy that comes from working together toward a shared vision. We believe food is love in action and this program is a chance to feed not just bodies, but community spirit."
After a week of running from cafeteria to cafeteria and keeping a whole lot of balls in the air, Sterling may be a bit tired, but he is clearly proud of his team.
"This is the fifth-largest district in Vermont," he says. "My interest in school food to begin with is about scalable systems change. This is probably the biggest restaurant in the county. And the U.S. school lunch program is the largest restaurant in the universe, so this is a pretty good place to start."
This News item by Virginia Ray was written for The Commons.