Produce coming from farms to school
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HURON — National Farm to School Month is upon us, and the Huron School District Nutritional Department is making great efforts as usual to educate and provide students with local, fresh produce.
“What’s not to like about kids and local produce,” said Carol Tompkins, Food Service Director at the Huron School District, “It helps everybody, the local farmers and economy, and the kids like the locally grown produce.”
The school has been involved in the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP) for eight years, which is a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
“We apply for it every year, it gives us the money to be able to offer our elementary students a fresh fruit or a fresh vegetable tasting,” Tompkins explained, “They get something in the classroom everyday and we send a fun fact informational sheet about it.”
The food for the daily tastings is prepared in the middle school every day and sent out to elementary classes from kindergarten through fifth grade. “The kids looks forward to trying a new fruit or veg everyday,” said Tompkins, “It makes it more fun for them because they don’t know what they are going to get.”
The students have had the opportunity to taste many different fruits and vegetables through the FFVP, including figs and Mexican gherkins, which are lemon flavored cucumbers shaped like tiny watermelons.
Photo:
Carol Tompkins, Food Service Director on left, and Karla Sawvell, Middle School Team Leader, present a bowl of fresh apples from local farms in the middle school kitchen.
Photo by Angelina Della Rocco/Plainsman