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Hello and welcome everyone. This is Matt Benson with the USDA Farm to School Program, and
I am really excited for this webinar today. I want to thank everyone for joining. This
webinar is being coordinated by the USDA Farm to School Program in partnership with eXtension's
Community of Practice, and community, local, and regional food systems. And it's been a
great partnership working with them. I just want to acknowledge also eXtension's Community
of Practice Healthy Food in Schools, its' a new CoP for eXtension, for all their support
and interest in this webinar as well. Just as a refresher, we're hoping these webinars
can feature best practices and case study examples on how eXtension professionals are
currently involved with Farm to School and to describe how other Farm to School related
organizations are partnering and collaborating with eXtension on the many different diverse
Farm to School activities. And we're really excited today to kick off this with two terrific
presenters. Across the country, an increasing number of schools and districts have begun
to source more foods locally and to provide complimentary educational activities to students
that emphasize food, farming, and nutrition, and these activities have become a part of
a national movement in Farm to School. And today Farm to School encompasses many different
diverse efforts that bring together local and regional produced foods and school cafeterias,
incorporate hand-on learning activities, such as school gardens or different types of farm
visits, and culinary classes, and also the integration of food-related education into
a regular standards-based classroom curriculum. We here at the USDA support these efforts
through our Farm to School Program and through the Know your Farmer Know Your Food initiative,
through research, training, technical assistance, and, of course, the Farm to School grant program.
I just want to kind of take care of a couple quick housekeeping things before we turn it
over to Emily. I uploaded a PowerPoint, a PDF of the PowerPoint, for today's presentation,
which is accessible for download for folks using the littler paper icon at the top of
the screen, the right hand corner. There's also two ways that folks can ask a question.
You can either use the question and answer chat tab at the top of your screen, Q&A and
you can just type in your question, or on the telephone today, you can also press "*1"
and the operator will then open up your line and you can ask your question. I want to encourage
folks to, as the presentations are going along, feel free to use the question and answer chat
tab or feel free to write down your question. However, we're going to wait and answer all
questions after the two presentations just to allow for the presentations to take place,
and we'll have plenty of time for question and answer. These webinars are also going
to be -- this webinar will also be recorded and available for download. It will be posted
at the USDA Farm to School Program website under "Webinars," and that usually takes one
to two weeks. But definitely, if you are interested, my contact information is at the end of the
PowerPoint, and feel free to just contact me and I'll make sure that you get the recording
of the webinar. So with that, I want to introduce our first presenter today. Her name is Emily
Jackson, with the Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. In 2002, Emily founded
the Growing Minds Farm to School Program with ASAP. In western North Carolina and in the
southern Appalachians, Emily and the Growing Minds team provide Farm to School support
and resources to preschools and K-through-12 school systems. She is also involved at the
state level and helped establish the North Carolina Child and Adult Feeding Program Farm
to School -- Farm to Preschool, excuse me, Coalition. Since 2007 Emily has served as
the Southeast Regional Lead for the National Farm to School Network. Emily is a former
K-through-six teacher and lives on a beautiful farm in Marshall, North Carolina, with her
husband, two chickens, three cats, and one dog. She also loves to cook, garden, and is
particularly, as she says, "gaga for children's literature." I'm really excited to have Emily
Jackson present for us. Thanks, Matt. And I'm just delighted to be here today. And I
hope that I'm providing some useful information today to you about working with Cooperative
Extension. So just to put a little bit of context into who I am and what my organization
is, you can read there the mission and vision of my organization, which is based in Asheville,
North Carolina, but we serve the western North Carolina region and the Southern Appalachians.
We work under a theory of change, which is localizing our food systems strengthens local
economies, foods, farms, profitability, increases sustainable production practices, and improved
individual and public health. And we do this through a framework of a four-prong approach.
We work to assess, direct demand, build capacity, and make connections. And then we do that
framework through our Farm to School program of course, through a local food campaign,
and also we have in our office and our organization a local food research center. So that's a
little bit about ASAP. But I'm also here today representing the National Farm to School Network.
And my organization is in charge of those ugly-colored states, the Kentucky, Tennessee,
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. And I'm sure all of you are familiar
with the National Farm to School Network, but just in case you're not, I encourage you
to connect with the Farm to School, sign up to become a member, and also to acknowledge
that October is National Farm to School Month, and so lots of resources are available at
farmtoschoolmonth.org. But we provide training and technical assistance to folks throughout
the Southeast and help basically connect what's happening in our region to the national network
and then the national network back to our region, so it's very exciting. The National
Network has been in operation since 2007, and now we have eight regional leads, 50 state
leads, and a national 16-member advisory board, as well as national staff. So I'm thrilled
to be a part of this network and represented. So that's just who I am and some context.
I just wanted to let you know I'm mostly reporting today on a particular project that was funded
by SARE PDP, but just to say very clearly the ASAP really has embraced and worked with
eXtension from the very beginning. When we first started our Farm to School work back
in 2002, we started with a Farm to School committee, and that comprised of child nutrition
directors, farmers, eXtension, health department, and of course ASAP. So we've just seen them
as a critical partner that's in every community. It was just a no-brainer for us that that
is a partner that we would work with. So that's just been the state of my organization and
our commitment to working with eXtension all along. And then, of course, my organization
is more than just Farm to School, and so we partner with eXtension in so many ways, I
can't begin to tell you. But just one example is we have a Business of Farming Conference
every year. And that's Jeremy DeLisle at the bottom right. And we had a Cooperative Extension
actually had a track our conference one year, but he's doing a presentation in one of our
workshops. So we just see them as critical outreach, critical to all the work that we
do. And we've also tried to be very mindful of not trying to duplicate the work of eXtension.
So my organization, for instance, has no focus on production methods at all and we really
see that, you know, as the work of eXtension. But we've had them as a valued partner all
along and can't imagine doing our work without them. So the project that I'm here to talk
about today is, like I mentioned before, a SARE PDP project. It took place -- the project
area took place in three of the states that we're responsible for for the National Farm
to School Network. We didn't want to take on all six states because we thought that
would make us a little "mile wide and an inch deep." And you can read for yourself, you
know, what we our objectives were. Our main one I'd have to say though really was health
Cooperative Extension defined their role in the implementation of Farm to School programming.
Sometimes it gets down to semantics that possible we were doing Farm to School, that they were
involved in school gardens, or helping farmers connect with school and markets, and just
not actually framing it that way. So that was primarily our main objectives was just
to help them see what they were already doing or what the opportunities could be for them
to expand and integrate Farm to School into their overall programming. So, again, this
took place in the three state area. So when we received this funding we created three
state teams. And you can see from the three states who we had involved, their actual names.
But the team composition were SARE state coordinators, child nutrition directors, or as people call
them "food service directors," farmers, and eXtension. And we also had a regional and
national partner in Southern SAWG, the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group, and
the National Farm to School Network were critical partners we thought in kind of rounding this
out -- this project out. So we started with these teams because we didn't want to, even
though ASAP had worked with eXtension throughout the year, we know we needed the other partners
and have eXtension at the table to help us create the resources and training that we
wanted to provide to eXtension agents and we knew that we needed, you know, other people
and other perspective to make this well-rounded. So we started off our project, again, to help
define the role of Cooperative Extension in Farm to School, but we started with a project
retreat. And so the three teams met, we met in South Carolina, which was the middle in
all of this. And the outcome was, you know, we bonded, we developed our relationships,
we got to know each other better. We created a needs assessment, which we sent out, and
I'll speak out a little bit in a minute. And then we decided -- originally the grant had
been written to have trainings in each of the three respective states, and the wisdom
of this group, these three teams, decided that they thought one multi-state conference
would work better than having the three individual. And then I just say another really great outcome
of this retreat was we had a lot of fun and we had great food. So I think fun is a component
we often overlook in our work, and I just wanted to put in a big fun for that. This
is just an example of one of the first slides that we sent out with our needs assessment,
and we did this needs assessment because we wanted to find out what extensions, what challenges,
and opportunities they saw in Farm to School, what they were encountering in their own communities.
We wanted to build a train based upon what they told us in this needs assessment. I think
the thing I would want to point out, that we got excellent survey participation rates
because we did not send the Survey Monkey out through ASAP but we sent it out through
eXtension in each of the three states. And so we had participation rates in the survey
as high as 77%. And those of you familiar with surveys know that's an extremely high
response rate. So this is just an example of how we had then, you know, identify what
their role was with eXtension. This next slide is just asking them what are the barriers
that they saw to the involvement in Farm to School, and the leading one was lack of funding.
So that's not terribly surprising. So the full survey results are on our Growing Minds
website. So that's broken down by the survey results in each of the respective states,
as well as a cumulative survey summary of the three states. And that can be found in
the link below on your screen. But it's also kind of a hard -- I apologize -- web address
to go to. So I maybe encourage you instead to go to growing-minds.org. And if you click
on our work at the top of the page that will dropdown a menu and you click on "Special
Projects," and then third special project is Cooperative Extension Farm to School resources.
So that should take you to that. So that not only has the surveys, but the three teams
that were involved in this work, we pooled resources for the conference training that
we had in Asheville. And so this slide just shows the notebook cover of the conference
notebook that was provided to all the eXtension agents that came from the three state region.
And we had it here in Asheville since ASAP was the convener for it to make it easier
on us, so we had the three states. And so we not only provided training on procurement,
but on the educational components of Farm to School, and of course those are, as defined
by ASAP anyway, school gardens, farm field trips, and cooking with local foods in the
cafeteria and classroom. And so the agents and the Cooperative Extension that attended
also got together with their states as part of this convening and talked about how they
could further their work either building Farm to School coalitions and alliances in their
respective states or what were some training opportunities that they could integrate Farm
to School into things that were already happening in their respective states. This is just a
very text-y slide that I apologize for. But these are just some of the comments from the
evaluation after eXtension folks attended the conference. And I think it's just -- the
second quote is really what resonates with me is that this is "Working this into my regular
programming because I believe that really does increase the sustainability of programming
if you're integrating it into what you're already doing. If it's seen as an additional
component or something extra to do, acknowledging that eXtension is often stretched tightly
across, they have a lot to do and they're really pulled in a lot of directions, but
if they see this as something they're integrating into what they're already doing, then that's
a wonderful opportunity. Another outcome of this project was we said we would make presentations
at national conferences, and so some of the team members participated in a presentation
at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Burlington, Vermont 2012. And then a subset
of us also presented at the National Agricultural County Agents Association Conference. What's
wonderful, of course, about that, well, we also provided through this funding scholarships
for nine Cooperative Extensions, three from each of the states to go to the National Farm
to School Conference, not just presenting, just to attend. I think this is really important
that more funding is provided to folks to attend these conferences. They're held every
other year, sponsored by the National Farm to School Network. And it's a great way to
make them feel a part of the movement. I will acknowledge, too, that these presentations
were very well received at both of the conferences. Our conference session at the National Agricultural
County Agents Association had over 100 extensions in attendance, and it was one of the best
trainings or workshop that I've ever been involved with people who were very receptive
to the idea and the notion. And so it felt like a great conference -- workshop session.
So the long-term benefits from this is written out here on another slide. But to me really
building the movement is the really most important thing. And this movement is really moving
fast, so I would say that some of these things have already been realized because, again,
this project took place in 2010 and 2011. So eXtension is onboard more than ever, I
think, now than they were even then. So some of these recommendations were made then but
are already realized. But increasing access to fresh, local food; the third one, becoming
a community-based resource; and that they are there in their communities to assist farms
and communities with their Farm to School initiatives are very important. The Cooperative
Extension sees themselves as an integral component of Farm to School, something that was a great
outcome of this that they are there, they can provide the information, they feel like
they're more able to, and they're also on the ground to help decrease the barriers preventing
local farmers from selling to local schools. These are just some of the outcomes from our
project. And then recommendations: you can see that we've done some of these and we've
had the presentations, but we need to continue to make presentations around this, because
I don't think this is as equal in all parts of the country as it could be. And I just
want to put in a plug right -- for the second Farm to School Cooperative Extension training
at the 2014 National Farm to School Conference. The RFP is currently open for presentation
proposals from states and communities to present at the conference in Austin, Texas, in April.
And so if you, the members of this webinar, have interest in or are working with Cooperative
Extension, I urge you to put in a proposal -- presentation proposal, sorry, for the National
Farm to School Conference in 2014. But ongoing training is needed. As with anybody and with
anything, we need to keep as up to date as always, research, integrating Farm to School
as eXtension education is very important. And so I'll just wrap it up by saying we continue
to work with eXtension. We see them as integral. I think more and more they are stepping up
and helping more schools and more communities in our areas start Farm to School. I hope
you are seeing an explosion in the very best sense of the word of Farm to School in your
area and eXtension is the partner at that table if not leading that initiative. If you
ever want to contact me about our projects, you can see my contact information there on
the screen. And I thank you very much for this opportunity to present our project. Awesome.
Thank you so much, Emily, for providing that overview on how the Appalachian Sustainable
Agriculture Project is working with and has been supporting eXtension's involvement in
Farm to School, providing training from Farm to School community-based nonprofit organization
to support their involvement through professional development is fantastic. And, you know, I'd
just like to see more groups reaching out to eXtension in terms of helping them become
engaged in Farm to School work. Just as a reminder, again, for folks who just recently
joined the call, we're going to hold all questions until after the two presentations, and then
the operator will open up the line and you can hit "*1" to ask your question or you can
use the chat box at the top of the screen under the "Q&A" to ask your question. But
we're going to keep things moving morning, or this afternoon. Our next presenter is Teresa
Wiemerslage from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Teresa is a regional program
coordinator for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach in six counties in Northeast
Iowa. She coordinated the work of the Northeast Iowa Food and Farm Coalition and currently
serves as the Iowa State University Extension Liaison to the Northeast Iowa Food and Fitness
Initiative. She has worked for ISU and Extension for ten years as a County Extension Director
before her current position where she specializes in food systems and Farm to School outreach.
And so with that we'll turn it over to Teresa.Hello. I'm glad to be with everybody today. I'm looking
forward to being able to share my story as an extension educator and how my job has evolved
into more specific outreach for food systems and Farm to School. So I want to take a little
bit of time in the first part of my presentation to talk a little bit about our journey as
a region into local food systems and how that has led to our Farm to School work. Northeast
Iowa is not what people typically think of when they imagine Iowa. Our part of the state
is part of the Driftless Region, which is 37 counties in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa,
and Illinois, that was untouched by the last glaciers. Agriculture in this area needs to
work in harmony with the [inaudible] topography, and it is home to many small and medium-sized
farms and has a very strong livestock base. Our story starts with a group of farmers who
wanted to explore opportunities for agriculture in Northeast Iowa. They were observing a disconnect,
even in our small towns, of the importance of agriculture to the local economy. They
approached the County Extension Director to facilitate a series of discussions among the
different commodity groups in the area. As a result, the groups started hosting a series
of speakers, and one of them was Ken Meter from the Crossroads Resource Center. Ken now
delivers his message all across his country, and it hasn't changed much from when we first
heard him back in 2005. He adds, "Why don't we grow our own food in the American heartland?"
We soon learned that even though Iowa has some of the best farmland in the country,
80% of our food comes from outside of the state. Ken's speech lit a spark with that
group. And after a consultation with the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture, we drafted
a strategic plan. In the plan local food production was identified as a strength in the region.
I still remember that day. We were all sitting around the table and we shared the final plan
with the group. We were all looking at each other kind of thinking, "What next," and then
one farmer said, "Well, let's get to work." That was the birth of the Northeast Iowa Food
and Farm Coalition. They formed, with the farmer-centered mission, to create opportunities
for new and existing farmers to engage in the food system. Schools were identified as
one of those target markets. That strategic plan proved to be a very important piece of
our story and has led to more opportunities. About the same time, at the state level, there
was a group facilitated by the Leopold Center that wanted to start investing in the capacity-building
work of food systems. They wanted to move from theoretical discussion to more practical,
on-the-ground work. So they names Northeast Iowa as the first regional food system working
group in the state. We call them RFSWGs. And since then, 15 more RFSWG has formed across
the state. Because of the strategic plan, we also caught the attention of the W. K.
Kellogg Foundation. They were starting a new community initiative that focused on policy
and system change in both food and fitness environments. We were invited to apply and
were selected as one of nine communities in the nation to receive a two-year planning
grant. Since then we have received a three-year implementation grant and a four-year extension
grant. This slide shows the strategies of our community action plan and the community
partners that lead the work in those strategies. We have worked hard to imbed all of this work
in the existing organizations to ensure sustainability because policy and systems change takes a
long time. So, first and foremost, youth are the center of our work. Luther College leads
the efforts around school wellness as we work to make schools a healthy place for children.
Northeast Iowa Community College leads the efforts in early childhood so that children
get a great start from birth and come to school ready to learn. Our COR, or Council of Government,
is Upper Explorerland Regional Planning Commission. They oversee the work to have safe places
in communities for people to be active. And then ISU Extension and Outreach coordinates
the food system work. We also coordinate the youth engagement piece. We believe youth are
partners in creating the change that we want to see. And this youth engagement piece is
imbedded in the Iowa 4-H Program. You can see by the overlapping circles that this work
is highly interdependent. Our Farm to School work is a partnership of Extension and Luther
College. We need each other to make this succeed. And we found that partnerships are key in
this work. Another key item that I consider to be critical to the success of Farm to School
is mission alignment. In Iowa, our Vice President for Extension has outlined four significant
issues for our organization: K12 youth outreach, economic development, food and environment,
health and wellbeing. Much to my relief, food systems and Farm to School has a fit within
each one of those issues. It's good to know that you have the blessing to continue the
great work that you have local partner support for. Just recently, our state 4-H program
also released its party topics for youth development efforts. And, again, much to my relief, Farm
to School programs can be the venue to strengthen knowledge and skills related to healthy living,
stem citizenship and leadership and communications in the arts. I'm going to share some specific
examples in just a few minutes. Partnering with the 4-H program allows us to use existing
county staff and resources to support the Farm to School activities over the long haul.
The Iowa 4-H program also provides infrastructure for volunteer screening, training, and risk
management resources for teams. As 4-H club members, these students have a multitude of
curricular resources to use and opportunities available to them. Emily touched on the point
of this slide. I wanted to include it as a reminder that Farm to School and food system
work does not mean that Extension staff need to create all new plans of work or all new
curriculum. Look at what your state already has created and what they're supporting. Much
of what is already there to support horticulture, low income families and food service will
apply to the Farm to School setting with small modifications. Now I've just spent a third
of my presentation time telling you about the history of our work. But I wanted to illustrate
how a small grassroots effort can swell into a complex regional collaboration, even at
a relatively short amount of time. This slide shows how the locally-driven efforts -- our
milestones are in black print, emergence of statewide initiatives are in orange, and some
milestones for Extension are in red. And you can see in 2009 everything in the Extension
world flipped a little bit upside down with a massive reorganization. Remember that the
core purpose of the Extension service is to provide research-based educational programs.
We accomplished this goal through the development of diverse and meaningful partnerships. We
listen to the local needs and create a plan to meet those needs. Most often the local
response will be quicker than a state level response. However, the statewide capacity
also needs to develop in order for those local efforts to be sustained over the long haul.
This is why efforts and partnerships with groups like Emily's to develop that capacity
are so important, even for those of us who are used to being on the other side of the
table as educators and not the learners. All right, I'm supposed to be talking about Farm
to School efforts and how we've utilized Extension Program's resources and capacity in our six-county
rural region, so let's go ahead and take a look. Our Farm to School outreach is modeled
after the three Cs from Vermont, cafeteria, classroom, and community. This picture shows
our school district. Our program is unique in the state in that we are considered one
Farm to School chapter, but we are doing work in 16 different districts. The districts all
range in size from 300 students to 1,500 students, and they're all considered rural. Some districts
have buildings in different towns and some districts are in the middle of nowhere, in
the countryside with farms as neighbors. Our largest community has 8,000 people. With the
Food and Fitness Initiative, we consider ourselves to be partners with schools, and partners
with them in their school wellness and their Farm to School efforts. We rely on those school
wellness teams to guide our work. They create a school wellness action plan each year, and
then Food and Fitness provides school resource context for those schools. These resource
context, or "RCs," are FoodCorps or AmeriCorps service members, and each one of those members
will be assigned to work with two or three schools. So, first, let's look at some of
the cafeteria outreach that we've done. We have found tremendous results by simply bringing
school food service directors together a couple times of year. These networking meetings will
often have an educational component, and there's always plenty of time to share the challenges
and the successes. So this picture shows all the great smiling faces at a ratatouille workshop.
A local chef showed the food service workers how to chop, slice and dice the local foods
from the school garden or from a local farm. They made ratatouille, which is then frozen
and then used for a school meal another day. Our service members and other volunteers regularly
do taste tests in school cafeterias, giving kids a chance to try a product before it shows
up on their tray really helps with the experience. This picture of the lunch tray is an example
of one of the meals available in our new cycle menu. When the new school food regulations
came out last year, initially there was panic, but then we quickly realized and we jumped
at the opportunity to create a seasonal cycle menu that features foods that can be grown
in Iowa. The theory is that if schools are following a similar menu, we can then do production
planning with farmers in the spring to make sure we have enough products for the schools.
We currently have an extension business specialist that is conducting research on food aggregation
hubs. One of his projects is to determine the operating costs of a local food delivery
service to schools. So some of you may know that food hubs are a very hot topic right
now. This year we received over $100,000 in public and private funds to research the viability
of a food hub in a rural area. That's going to be a webinar for another day. One of the
ways we are measuring the impact of our work is to record the purchases of local foods
by schools. This chart shows our progress over the last five years. The data is pretty
easy to collect if the school has a system set up to track the local food purchases separately.
I found that the schools are very willing to share this information because they like
to be known to support local businesses as well. The next C in our Farm to School program
is classrooms. Sometimes the classrooms are outdoors in the school garden, or in the school
greenhouse or high tunnel. I often joke that school gardens are highly contagious, so beware.
Once you get over the initial inertia of getting a garden started and supported, they multiply
very rapidly, and pretty soon you have gardens at each elementary center and raised beds
in this corner and patches of ground tilled up in this corner and schools are starting
to fundraise for greenhouses. Master gardeners can be a great resource for these projects.
I've even had some high school students ask about taking the masters in our class. Farm
to School provides a great setting for afterschool clubs as well like cooking clubs or garden
clubs. We utilize screened and trained volunteers to provide that safe environment and opportunities
for these youth to learn new skills. Now classroom nutrition education is not a new concept.
However, we've developed a unique approach where we train high school students to be
Farm to School across-age teachers. The program is modeled after the Boomerang! Character
Education Curriculum. A team of high school students visits a second-grade classrooms
every month to share a local grown or processed food and to talk about the nutrition of that
food. In addition to the Iowa fruits and vegetables, we also feature local meats, dairy, grains,
and greenhouse crops during the winter months. And, finally, the last C stands for community.
Each of our partner schools has a youth food and fitness team. These are what I consider
to be new models of the 4-H club. They meet in a different place and have a different
vocabulary, but they're still meeting the traditional 4-H outcomes of mastery, leadership,
citizenship, and communication. So, instead of clubs, we have teams. Instead of leaders,
we have coaches. Instead of meeting on a Saturday at a neighbor's house, they meet before school
or after school or during lunch. Instead of making projects for the county fair, they
focus on changes they want to see in their school and communities. So in these pictures
you'll see some examples of our youth advocacy and outreach. The top picture has a youth
team that volunteered to cook the meals for a monthly community meal using the skills
they learned in a cooking class. The middle school students, on the bottom, donated extra
produce from a school garden to the food pantry. And then over to the right, another team of
middle school students represented their school as statewide youth leadership summit at the
state capitol. So as you can probably tell, I get rather excited about talking about Farm
to School and I think Farm to School is a great fit for our Extension educators, volunteers,
and partners. A large part of my time has been dedicated to supporting Farm to School
the last five years. But from where I stand these are some keys to success. First of all,
look for alignment, and Emily touched on this a little bit, too. Look for things that align
with current Extension programs and utilize what's already been created. But sometimes
you have to look a little closer or look past the surface. Just like I used that example
of our food and fitness youth teams, all the elements of a positive youth development experience
were there, it was just a different package. Next, look for practical research opportunities.
Many of our food systems and Farm to School projects have been packaged as research projects,
like what is the best practice to engage food service director, what are best practices
for sustainable school gardens, what does a cyclical school menu featuring local foods
look like, what does it cost to provide a chopped root vegetable mix for schools? All
these questions sound pretty simple, the answers definitely aren't. They tend to be very complex.
Identify the need, create a plan, and look for some funding. Now the next point, being
a facilitator versus an expert, touches pretty close to home for me. Many times Extension
educators are viewed as experts in their field. I believe that food system and Farm to School
work requires more of a community facilitation role. Extension educators should be willing
to be part of the learning community that they're supporting, come to the group as a
learner, roll up their sleeves and be willing to get dirty. Finally, connections are key.
Extension isn't just about delivering information anymore. We're about people and relationships.
So Washington State University Extension is using this term called "rainmaker" to describe
this new generation of Extension educators. They say a rainmaker is someone who, through
their skills and abilities, can bring people and resources together to meet challenges
facing a community. Rainmakers are continual learners. They have an area of expertise,
but they're also very entrepreneurial and able to work in diverse teams. They must be
competent in establishing partnerships, be able to empower people, and be adept in developing
relevant educational programs. Subject matter specialization is desirable, but usually big
picture thinking is more preferred. I think that's pretty appropriate, don't you think,
a rainmaker? I can't think of a better descriptor of an Extension educator involved in Farm
to School work. So I hope this presentation gives you some ideas to support your local
Farm to School efforts. Our websites are listed on this slide and I invite you to visit them.
Thanks. Awesome. Thank you so much, Teresa. The examples you are sharing -- or you shared
about how you're supporting Farm to School through the different three C model is fantastic.
And the recommendations you just provided at the end really hit home, I think, for me.
One thing that we found here is that, through the USDA Farm to School grant program, out
of the 68 grants that were awarded last year, 25% of those awardees are currently partnering
with Cooperative Extension to support Farm to School. And so I'm always really excited
to hear how different groups are working with Extension and how bringing those collaborations
in together. Before we open it up for question and answer, I just want to provide a couple
more just housekeeping type things. We have two more of these types of webinars currently
scheduled. Our next webinar will be on Wednesday, October 9th, with presentations from Julia
Govis at the University of Illinois Extension, and Morgan Taggart at Ohio State University
Extension. We also have a third webinar scheduled for Wednesday, October 30th, that will feature
Susan DeBlieck from University of Minnesota Extension Service, as well as Debra Eschmeyer
talking about how FoodCorps is partnering with Extension both at the state and local
level. More information about these webinars are available at the USDA Farm to School program
website through "Webinars." Also as a reminder for folks, a recording of today's session
will be available probably within one to two weeks. And, finally, for me, before I let
Emily provide one more update, is the USDA next week, Tuesday I believe, October 1st,
will be releasing the first ever National Farm to School census results. And this census
will be -- the results of the census will be available on our website found at the USDA
Farm to School Program website. And it's the results of a survey of over 13,000 school
districts and how these school districts -- how every school district in the country is currently
engaged in Farm to School. And so I would just encourage folks on today's call and webinar
to check out that census, see what schools in your communities, in your area are doing
to support Farm to School. Results will be at the county, state, and at the national
level. It's something that we are really excited about here. And so I hope that new tool will
help folks today see how different schools are participating and see how they can work
with schools as part of the Farm to School. Emily, I think you wanted to just make another
update about one thing. I just wanted to make a quick announcement. Thank you, Matt. Just
for anybody who it might apply to in our listening audience, ASAP is hosting our annual Farm
to School Conference on Saturday, November the 2nd. And we'll have four tracks at the
conference of Farm to School 101, Digging Deeper into Farm to School, a preschool track
for those working in the pre-K area, and also pre-service, integrating Farm to School into
the teacher preparation and dietician preparation programs at universities. Again, so that's
Saturday, November 2nd. And you can register by going to growing-minds.org. Terrific. Yeah.
And just as another reminder, October is National Farm to School Month. And I can't wait to
hear about how different things are taking place around Farm to School in October, and
I would encourage folks today, again, to just see how they can become more engaged and support
that initiative. With that, I think we are ready to open the lines to see if folks have
any questions. Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please press "*" then "1."
Please record your name clearly when prompted. To withdraw the request, press "*" then "2."
Once again, to ask a question, please press "*1." One moment. Once again, if you'd like
to ask a question over the phone, please press "*" then "1." There is one question that was
typed into the chat feature. And Aaron asked, "Teresa mentioned best practices for engaging
school food service directors in Farm to School." She was wondering if you had any information
available about or could share your experiences with engaging school food service directors
and best practices in terms of partnering with them for Farm to School? Sure. So I used
that as an example of a potential research project just because it seems like while there's
similar themes, you know, you hear similar types of barriers all across the country of,
you know, why food service workers don't want to get involved. You know, there may be local
variations that influence some of that. So I threw that question out as a potential,
you know, idea for a research project, especially for your state. You know, as far as a handout
like that, I don't have anything that I could share at this time. You know, the National
Farm to School website has some great resources that you may be able to find there. But as
far as a specific piece from us, I don't have any at this time. Sorry. Emily, from your
perspective, would you have any -- would you be able to share any of your experience in
best practices for working with and engaging food service directors around Farm to School?Well
there are a lot of resources around training, definitely on the National Farm to School
Network site of working with cafeteria staff, as well as guides for cafeteria taste tests
that include best practices when partnering with child nutrition staff. So those could
be found -- we have a few of those in our growing-minds.org website. But I think the
most well-rounded resources would probably be found on the farmtoschool.org website.
Great. We have another question from Jennie. And Jennie was wondering if either Teresa
or Emily could share ideas for implementing Farm to School in an urban community with
a large public school system. I know that's something that Morgan Taggart is going to
speak about on the next webinar coming from Cleveland in her work with schools around
the Cleveland area. But perhaps Emily and Teresa might be able to share some information.
Well I would just say that, you know, our largest school system that we work in, at
least in the western North Carolina region, is only 26,000. School Food FOCUS is a great
resource to you for working with 40,000-plus school systems, that's who they focus on.
I would say that those larger school systems, especially in the procurement, if the meals
are made in the aggregate site, that can sometimes make it a little bit easier because you don't
have that delivery dilemma that more spread out school systems might have, so that's a
plus. They also have more buying power than the smaller school systems do. So that is
another great opportunity. So, you know, if you look at it in terms of -- and, of course,
getting the children nutrition director for that school system or the school food service
director on board with you is of course paramount. But I think of it as more of an opportunity
than -- I think rural systems actually bring more challenge to them in a lot of ways for
farmers to service. And I might also say, working with existing systems, so ASAP's been
pretty successful working with produce distributors and food service management companies to get
them connected with local farmers, and then the child nutrition staff have to do less
because they're getting their local products in their producing system where they're getting
all their other products. It's probably, to me, it's a low-hanging fruit with working
with a larger system. Okay. Yeah, and this is Teresa. And I guess -- Emily did such a
great job, I don't know that I have a whole lot to add for additional resources because,
like I mentioned in my presentation, I work with all small rural districts. Emily's point
about, you know, the challenges that are different in a rural district, sometimes it's harder
logistically because you're working with several different types of administrative hurdles
versus an urban district. But then you start to run into what I've perceived size issues.
So how do you service a district that has, you know, 10,000, 20,000 students to be able
to feed and have something go through the mainline? You know, the food procurement piece
is just part of Farm to School, and I guess I would encourage people to look at the other
parts of Farm to School when it comes to, you know, school gardens. You know, you have
a lot more chances to find teachers that would be engaged and willing to adopt school gardens
and make them work. You have a bigger pool of volunteers that you could tap into. So
those are just a few thoughts. And I'll add, if I can, just one other fault. I think it
is more problematic when you're working with a large system to keep the face to the food
throughout the chain when you're dealing with large school systems. And I would encourage
folks to consider things -- ASAP developed a local certification, or Appalachian Grown,
which really is helpful in keeping the identity of that product from the farm to the plate.
So we have farmers that are Appalachian Grown certified, and then the people who are either
the distributors or the schools themselves are Appalachian Grown handlers, and so they
have to write in to agree or pledge to keep the integrity of the product that goes from
the farm to the fork. And so that's something that people might be interested in looking
into more. And they can find information at our Appalachian Grown program at our ASAPconnections.org
website. Awesome. Yeah, thinking about how folks can support the many activities and
aspects of Farm to School across the continuum, from local foods in school meals to school
gardens to experiential education in urban areas is definitely something I think we're
all trying to think through and how best to do that, but thinking about the different
components is perhaps a good way to start. There was also a question, someone sent me
an e-mail and was unable to connect but wanted to ask a question about partnering -- about
how Extension can be involved with the USDA Farm to School grant program. As folks probably
know, Extension cannot be the organization that submits the grant. Those are primarily
for schools and state agencies and other community-based organizations, nonprofit groups. But we have
found Extension being a partner to support those applications through different types
of activities, maybe through different training for components within the grant, providing
different technical assistance for folks, maybe being part of the steering committee
for the grant. But that also brings to mind perhaps an opportunity to do another webinar
specifically about how Extension is supporting and working with the USDA Farm to School grant
program. So I'll be excited to share that with colleagues here. Are there any other
questions that folks would like to ask online or through the telephone? Sir, we do have
one in the queue. Maggie Goslyn (ph), your line is open. Hi, Matt. This is Maggie. This
is Maggie Goslyn. I am a colleague of Matt's at USDA. And I'm wondering if, Teresa, you
can talk a little bit about how -- you hit on this a bit -- but how an individual extension
agent's priorities are set? And then maybe backing up a little from there if Matt or
Teresa can just talk a little bit more about the Extension model? I think there might be
some people on the webinar who are familiar with Extension agents, but they don't know
exactly how the Extension model or Extension funding works. Sure. So I don't have a good
answer for that question just because, you know, the Cooperative Extension system is
affiliated with the land-grant university in each state. And every state runs differently
it seems. You know, there's states with traditional models of an ag agent, a youth agent, and
a families agent in each county. In Iowa here we, with our organization in 2009, we went
to a more regional model where we still have county offices in every county, but programmatically
we're supported by field specialists that are housed throughout the state but they serve
multiple counties and, in some cases, multiple regions. My particular position, our counties
actually collaborated together and have pooled their funding to hire three of us as regional
program coordinators, and then we serve those six counties. With that local connection,
I feel like we have a little bit more flexibility in being responsive to the needs of the people
directly in our region. I alluded also a little bit in my presentation of how each state will
have their priority focus areas. And the more you can align with those focus areas, it seems
like the easier it is to have resources developed and partnerships formed. So I would I guess,
in summary, I would say, you know, check with your local Extension people to see how the
system works because you undoubtedly will run into a mix of local staff, state staff,
regional staff, and how all of their plans of work are dictated will vary state to state.
And Matt, this is Emily. Can I add a little bit to the question? Absolutely, of course.
I heard about this at a conference I was at recently, but she might want to contact the
Center for Environmental Farming Systems at North Carolina State University. They've got
a 10% Campaign that is integrated into all the Cooperative Extensions and agencies across
North Carolina. And they've recently come up with something I think is a brilliant idea
of -- so this is not just Farm to School, this is Farm to School and the other type
of local food system work that the Extension person is engaged in. But they're putting
it into their system so that when they do their time recording and what they're worked
on, they're integrating it into that system. So they're actually kind of getting credit
for the work that they're doing in Farm to School, and I just thought that was a really
brilliant way to help Extension get the credit they deserve for working on Farm to School
or other local food initiatives. And, again, that was just Center for Environmental Farming
Systems at NC State University. Yeah, that's a great addition, too. One thing NC State
has done is asked for each local county Extension Office to serve as a -- one person in that
office to serve as the point of contact for local food system efforts. And that person
can be from any program area, an agriculture agent or educator. It could be someone from
4-H or families in youth and communities. But somebody within that local Extension Office
is the point of contact for local food systems work. And, as Emily said, that work was -- that
shift was initiated through some of Nancy Kramer's work, I believe, at the Center for
Environmental Farming Systems. And more and more states across the country, I think, are
following North Carolina's lead and Extension directors are saying this work, these activities
that support local and regional food systems, these activities that support Farm to School
are important for us to be involved in. They are contributing to some of our goals related
to social outcomes and economic development outcome, things like that, quality outcomes.
And so they see these programs as one way for reaching larger organizational goals and
larger societal goals. So the North Carolina model is definitely a great place to start
for Extension systems. A lot of the leadership there, I think, has to be credited for taking
awareness and understanding the importance of these issues. Are there more questions?
Sir, at this time I show now questions in the queue. There's one more question online
I see here from Karen P., and her question is for Teresa and others, and it says, "What
curriculum have you utilized for youth educational components of your projects? I'm not sure
if, Teresa, if you've used specific curriculum for youth or know of other folks that have
used different types of curriculum? Sure. So, as I look at my desk, the ones that are
sitting right there, I use the Growing in the Garden curriculum, which was developed
here in Iowa. There's a K-3 portion, as well as a four through six piece. They will be
coming out with a specific new addition to that Growing in the Garden that has a local
food focus. I'm not sure when that's coming out, but it should be soon. Food, Land, and
People is another curriculum I rely on quite a bit, available to Cooperative Extensions.
We use the Pick A Better Snack curriculum, which was developed with funds from the federal
food assistance dollars. So while that's not necessarily a local piece, it definitely has
great portions and worksheets and activities around fruit and vegetables. And then the
one example that I gave in my presentation, the cross-age teaching curriculum, is something
that we designed on our own and is currently in the pilot phase. That was modeled after
another type of character education curriculum called "Boomerang," but instead of teaching
kids about character aspects they're teaching kids about local foods. So those are just
a few that I can think of off the top of my head. And then I'd add, I really like French
Fries and the Food System. That's been around for a long time. GrowLab is another really
good one. I think when you're first getting started, having a curriculum is important
for people to kind of see the wide variety of things that are available to them to do,
but I also think that real sustainability is kind of teaching teachers how to really
integrate this into what they're already doing as real sustainability, because if they feel
like they're following curriculum that can't -- and this is just coming from me being a
K6 teacher -- it makes you feel like it's something other. So as much as you can, you
know, getting them to feel comfortable with curriculum is a great strategy, and then they
can kind of start making it their own and integrating it into their themes and projects
of the classroom. Exactly, and, you know, that is a piece that we try and focus on as
well. When you're thinking about school wellness, it's not always about new curriculum. It's
about how do you just revise what you're currently doing and adapt it to always give off those
messages of good food and active living. So instead of doing a mass project with M&Ms,
maybe it's a mass project with carrot sticks. Or, you know, how do you change some of the
activities that you're already doing to send a better health message, and then that can
incorporate the school wellness piece throughout the whole thing. And I think building upon
the three Cs that were mentioned by Teresa, is if you can incorporate lessons that have
something to do with cafeteria, what's being served in the cafeteria, and then something
that's going home, like a recipe. So you do an activity in the classroom on cucumbers,
they're served in the cafeteria, and then maybe a recipe goes home with the family.
The more that children hear and see these in different contexts from the teachers, from
the cafeteria, from their parents and families, the more I think that is a particular experience
for the children. Definitely, yeah. I completely agree. And just two other additional pieces
of curriculum that might be of interest for folks, if you haven't seen these yet, our
friends at USDA Team Nutrition have released some recent curriculum for different grades.
There's the "Dig In" curriculum for fifth and sixth graders. And there's the "Great
Garden Detective Adventure" for folks to use for third and fourth graders. And I believe
those pieces can be both found if you were to search online for USDA Team Nutrition.
And I believe any school district that participates in the National School Lunch Program can receive
free hard copies of those curriculum, so a couple of additional pieces there. Are there
any more questions? Once again, if you'd like to respond, please press "*" then "1." Well,
if not, on the screen is contact information for both Emily, Teresa and myself. As I said
before, a recording of this webinar will be posted online at the USDA Farm to School program
website, that will probably be one to two weeks. Feel free to just send me an email
if you're looking for a recording of that webinar. Our next presentation from folks
will be Wednesday, October 9th at 1:00 PM at the same link and call-in information.
If there's no more questions, I want to give a hardy thank you for my friends Emily and
Teresa for presenting. And I want to thank everyone else for joining us today. As I said,
this is the first webinar part of the series. And we're just hoping to continue to support
Extension's involvement in Farm to School. So thanks again for joining, and we look forward
and hope you can join on October 9th. Thanks everybody.