Students in the New Albany-Plain Local School District now have more fresh produce in their cafeteria lunches thanks to the district’s partnership with Whitebarn Organics and Lynd Crest Orchard.
“Offering students fresh produce and healthful food options is a health benefit, and if you’re in the food produce industry, especially with children, that is the most important thing,” says Pam Charles, the district’s food service coordinator. “You want to give students something nutritious, and something healthy that they can enjoy.”
Beginning during the 2014-2015 school year, the district has partnered with Whitebarn and Lynd Crest with the goal of providing students with more fresh produce for their school lunches, Charles says.
Photo by Patrick Gallaway
“They provided a way for us to get fresh produce all year long, which is fairly impossible in Ohio,” Charles says. “You have to get good nutrition habits in the students when they are young.”
Lynd Crest provides the schools with a variety of apples, and Whitebarn contributes plenty of vegetables, including broccoli, spinach, carrots, assorted salad greens, tomatoes, kale and cabbage.
“With White Barn Farm, we get a lot of greens. You name it, we have it,” Charles says. “Everything that comes in is so beautiful and so perfect.”
The district also receives such products as candy onions, squash, shallots, red and gold potatoes, radishes and baby turnips.
“We get things we have never even heard of. We even had to Google some stuff to find out what the things were,” Charles says.
The partnerships were possible because the district is part of the Federal Farm to School Program, Charles says, which allows it to get healthful foods straight from the farm all year long. Once a week, the schools receive the food items, which are sent in bulk.
The schools are also making the effort to cook from scratch more because it is more healthful than serving pre-prepared or processed foods.
“It’s about getting back to the basics and getting away from the processed foods, because everybody knows that they aren’t good for you,” Charles says.
The response to the available healthful food options has been positive.
“If you can get some good healthy options and keep it affordable, it is good,” Charles says. “The parents are happy, and the kids are, too. We very seldom get a complaint from the kids.”
There is a fresh cooking line and a salad bar where the majority of these products are available.
Although the program has had its fair share of success at the schools, some of the students were a little reluctant to try some of the products at first, Charles says.
“When we first started homemade cooking, the kids didn’t know what some products were,” she says. “If you can get them to taste it, that’s a good thing. You can’t expect everyone to like it, but we have more and more kids going to the salad bar. It’s a very good thing to see.”
In addition to this partnership, the district also looks for students to live overall healthy lifestyles in more ways than just eating healthfully.
“There has always been a healthy focus within New Albany schools,” says Patrick Gallaway, district director of communications. “I think it is sort of an attitude; it’s not just about what we’re learning about in the classroom, but it’s about a healthy lifestyle. We want the focus to be about healthy choices.”
There are rules and regulations about the kinds of snacks and treats that can be brought into a classroom: All of the students participate in wellness classes, and many students are involved in sports or extracurricular activities, Gallaway says.
“This school from early on is all about choice and learning how to make good choices, and I think that’s where the nutrition comes in, too. It’s important to make good choices for lunch,” says Charles.
William Kosileski is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at ssole@cityscenemediagroup.com.
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