Downeast Maine Farm to School

Downeast Maine Farm to School

Summary

In this project, Healthy Acadia is working with schools in two rural counties of Maine to strengthen their capacity for local food sourcing and building viable institutional markets for area farms. Key components of the project include conducting a two-county assessment of the readiness and capacity of schools to purchase from local farms, and to provide training and technical assistance to enable schools, to initiate and sustain purchasing relationships. Workshops, peer mentoring and targeted consultations will be used to achieve community impact and outcomes.

Objectives/Performance Targets

• Develop and implement farm to school assessment of area schools, to build understanding of the school market, its needs and its potential

  Develop peer mentoring supports for school food service staff related to local foods purchasing

  Provide technical assistance to school food service staff related to local foods purchasing

  Disseminate market demand data (assessment results) to farms in our region

  Increase the number of schools buying food from local farms by 100% during the 2008-2009 season

Accomplishments/Milestones

Farm to School Assessment

In fall of 2008, Healthy Acadia implemented a two-county farm to school survey. The survey was available in both online and paper format. Twenty-six school food service directors, most representing one school but some representing multiple schools (all in the K-12 grade range) completed the survey, out of a total of 52 possible responses, for a 50% return rate. Two higher educational institutions also completed the survey. Survey results are still being analyzed, but preliminary analysis reveals several interesting trends including: schools indicate that a regular product and price list from a farmer is an important tool to help them purchase more local foods. In addition, about 50% of survey respondents indicate that they are “very interested” (5 on a scale of 1-5) in serving locally-grown foods in their cafeterias, with an additional 30% ranking their interest at a level of 4. New kid-friendly recipes featuring local foods and help in making connections with a local farm were the most frequent requests for assistance from Healthy Acadia’s Farm to School project. Phase two of the assessment includes on-site follow-up interviews with schools in both counties, which will be completed by mid-January. Results will be fully analyzed by the end of January 2008.

Healthy Acadia has also contracted with the Down East Business Alliance of the Washington Hancock Community Agency to initiate a brief survey with four farmers who have participated in farm to school purchasing to-date, to assess what’s working and what’s not working with farm to school purchasing.

Peer Mentoring Among School Food Service

Healthy Acadia has joined forces with the Ellsworth-area Youth Obesity Think Tank to host a series of peer learning workshops for school food service providers in Hancock County. The first workshop was held on November 13, 2008, and two subsequent workshops are scheduled for February and April. Several topics including local foods are covered at each workshop, with children’s health as an overall theme. School food service staff from 15 schools attended the first workshop, and shared resources and ideas specifically around using more fresh fruits and vegetables and getting students involved in hands-on work with fresh foods. The February workshop will include strategies for conducting taste-tests of local foods, and in April we plan to bring one or more farmers to the workshop to talk directly with school food service providers about the ins and outs of direct farm purchasing. Workshop topics are identified by the participating food service staff, and participants thus far have shown strong interest in learning more about local foods. Peer learning discussions were the most popular aspect of the first workshop, and will be continued in subsequent workshops.

Technical Assistance to School Food Service

This spring, Healthy Acadia’s Farm to School Project provided assistance to several Hancock County Schools to apply for the USDA’s Fresh Fruit and Vegetable grant program, the first time this funding has been available in Maine. Ultimately, 11 schools in Hancock County were awarded funding (out of 50 awards statewide), and most included plans for local foods purchasing in their grant applications. We have since assisted several of these schools in connecting with farmers to purchase produce for the program, including local blueberries, plums and apples. In addition, we were able to set-up a school-wide apple taste-test at one school, where farmer and orchardist Phil Norris (Clayfield Farm) presented five different varieties of apples to students in grades K-12 at Mount Desert Elementary. During the apple tasting, one student was overheard commenting to a peer: “This is the best day ever!” Norris hopes to conduct more school taste-tests next year.

In addition, we are in the process of conducting on-site interviews with more than 10 schools in the two-county region (three elementary school interviews and one university interview have been conducted to-date). The interviews focus on new farm to school sites, schools that are interested in purchasing local but have little to no experience. During these visits we identify technical assistance needs, and develop plans for local foods purchasing in the coming year. We anticipate that the majority if not all of these ten plus schools will be purchasing local foods actively by fall of 2009.

In 2008, Healthy Acadia also helped organize a new Washington County Farm to School Committee in collaboration with the Washington County: One Community Coalition, and co-hosted a first-ever Washington County Farm to School Workshop. Several schools and farms sent representatives to this workshop which has built significant momentum for initiating farm to school purchasing in this rural county. Healthy Acadia is helping the Washington County Committee identify and develop funding resources, to develop a locally-based Farm to School Coordinator.

Impacts and Contributions/Outcomes

• Four area farms have begun marketing their products to schools using different strategies including one-on-one purchasing relationships, taste-test events, and phone marketing to numerous school customers

  As a result of the readiness assessment, 20 area schools (K-12) expressed a high level of interest in purchasing from local farms, and identified the tools and resources that they need to do this purchasing

  Two schools have developed preliminary plans for initiating or significantly expanding their local foods purchasing in 2009

  Four schools participated in the first-ever Washington County Farm to School workshop, where food service providers, teachers, and farmers met each other and discussed ways for making more farm to school connections

  Fifteen Hancock County schools participated in a learning session with information about local foods

  The Martha Stewart Living television show will feature the farm to school program at Beech Hill Farm and Mount Desert Elementary School in January 2009, reaching audiences around the country with a story of schools using local foods, children harvesting crops at the farm while learning about agriculture, and children being actively involved in cooking and food preparation as part of their school lunch program

  Farm to school and the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program were featured in three area newspaper articles, including one front page story in the Blue Hill Peninsula’s “The Weekly Packet”

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