By Kelly McLemore,
FBG AmeriCorps VISTA

Healthy City Youth Farm, located on the grounds of Hunt Middle School, marked the beginning of the growing season on May 20, and the entire student body of Hunt Middle School - all 380 students - participated in a variety of activities to celebrate the launch and get the site ready for planting.

Students also enjoyed visiting the farm’s taste test station as they marveled at City Market’s bike-powered, healthy smoothies and sampled local spinach and root vegetables. Some brave students even took the “Warrior Challenge” and tried a bit of locally-harvested, sautéed stinging nettle – to mixed reviews.

Educators from Shelburne Farms taught students about where their food comes from and distributed samples of their Vermont cheddar. Students were able to trace their cheese from the sun’s rays warming the stones in a field, to grass growing, to the full stomach of a grazing dairy cow, to the farmer milking his cow and finally making cheese with the fresh milk.

The day-long celebration included a visit from Sen. Patrick Leahy and his wife, Marcelle. After enjoying a healthy school lunch of American Flatbread and the fresh salad and soup bar in the Hunt cafeteria, Leahy held a news conference in front of the farm to recognize the groundbreaking farm-to-school work done in Vermont and speak on the importance of healthy, local food.

Broadly speaking, Farm to School connects K-12 students and local farms with the goal of serving healthy meals in school cafeterias, supporting local agriculture, improving nutrition and advancing student achievement.  An estimated 200 of Vermont’s 320 elementary schools are engaged in farm to school programming. Rooted in the local community, these programs are as rich and diverse as the people and resources in each of their regions.

Leahy secured a $276,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for Vermont FEED (Food Education Every Day) in 2009.  It was the nation’s first CDC grant for Farm to School. Last year at this time, students and teachers at Hunt completed surveys about their food preferences as part of the CDC-funded evaluation of Farm to School in Vermont. This data was merged with information from 655 students and 43 teachers from 12 schools (rural, suburban and urban).  PEER Associates, an independent education evaluation firm, is working with the University of Vermont Center for Rural Studies and practitioners across the state to analyze the data to better understand the impact of Farm to School programming on student food choice, specifically consumption of fruits and vegetables. One thing is crystal clear: Vermont students eat more fruits and vegetables than children in other states. 

Vermont has one of the fastest growing farm to school networks in the country. Schools statewide receive policy level support in the form of planning and implementation grants administered by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets. These grants support food service directors to source and cook produce from nearby farms, but they also provide teachers with professional development to interweave farm and food nutrition into curricula at all grade levels. As a result, thousands of Vermont students like those at Hunt are tending school gardens, cooking and taste-testing new recipes in their classrooms, and helping out on field trips at nearby farms. All of this is adding up to a change in school food culture that encourages enjoyment of healthy, fresh, local food.

During the news conference at Hunt Middle School, several students spoke to Senator Leahy and their classmates.  They stressed how important Healthy City Youth Farm was to them and to the school, how they had learned to eat and enjoy more vegetables, and how proud they were to see food that they had grown in their own cafeteria.

Senator Leahy summed up the day when he remarked:
“School food change is complex. It requires tremendous commitment from farmers and food service, parents and teachers, students and community leaders.  From what I see here at Hunt today and what I know is happening across the State, it clear that Vermont is leading the way.”

By the end of the school day when the first light raindrops were beginning to fall, the farm beds were fully composted and the formerly immense pile of soil was reduced to nothing more than a dark patch in the grass.

Three hundred and eighty students had learned a bit more about food and food systems, and the sixth, seventh and eighth graders of Hunt Middle School had laid the groundwork for a wonderful and productive season on the Farm.

Click here for more photos from the day: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.219791061383587.72070.207490335946993

The Healthy City Youth Farm at Hunt is the heart of the Healthy City Youth Initiative (HCYI), a program of Friends of Burlington Gardens. The hands-on, farm-to-school program is designed to boost physical activity, increase healthy lifestyle choices, and teach basic cooking and gardening skills for students in the Burlington School District. Students plant seeds, harvest for their school cafeterias, and collaborate with food service chefs on taste tests and new menu items. Youth Farm which provides 26 weeks of service-learning programming for 380students and field trips for visiting elementary students. Friends of Burlington Gardens is a nonprofit organization that supports the development of sustainable community, school, and neighborhood gardens in the city of Burlington and across the state of Vermont. For more information, visit www.burlingtongardens.org