Schools in Winneshiek County are serving locally-grown foods this week during Home Grown School Lunch Week

This week has featured lots of local food and activities at area schools.

 Fourteen northeast Iowa schools are serving local foods on school lunch menus and participating in nutrition education and fitness activities as part of Home Grown School Lunch Week, September 19-23.  The schools are receiving support from the NE Iowa Food & Fitness Initiative (FFI) in planning the activities for the week.  Decorah Schools, North Winneshiek, South Winneshiek and Turkey Valley have all been part of the program.

Home Grown School Lunch Week is a week where the focus is on eating local foods as part of school lunches (one day or all week), along with conducting school-based activities to promote healthier eating.  Food Service Directors in local school systems are emphasizing local items on the school lunch menu during the week.  Nutrition education information will be provided to students, and they will learn the benefits of using Iowa-grown foods.
 
Decorah Schools featured squash, veggies from the school gardens, local apples and ratatouille. The ratatouille (roasted vegetables, mixed with herbs and oils) proves to be a very versatile dish that "sneaks" in a lot of vegetables in offerings such as pizza or spaghetti sauce. North Winneshiek featured local apples as well as produce from the school garden. Middle school students there talked with the elementary school students about how the school garden worked. Educational posters, table tents, and special food samples are all part of the week.

Last week, partly in preparation for this week, Decorah Middle School hosted a Stir-Fry 5th Season workshop for area schools. (Photos for this story are all from that workshop.)

While the sponsoring programs do not provide direct money to schools to purchase local foods, they reinforce those purchases by providing funds for related kitchen equipment. For example, if a school provides proof of purchase for some local produce, they could be reimbursed $300 for appropriate kitchen equipment such as apple peelers or cabbage slicers.

Providing support for Home Grown School Lunch Week in addition to the Food & Fitness Initiative are Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, Luther College and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. Three AmeriCorps and two Food Corp workers have been involved in coordination of the school programs.

In 2007, Iowa lawmakers passed Farm to School legislation to establish a program that would link elementary, secondary, public and non-public schools with Iowa farmers; provide schools with fresh and minimally processed Iowa grown food for inclusion in school meals and snacks; and to encourage children to develop healthy eating habits and provide them with hands-on learning opportunities, such as farm visits, cooking demonstrations, and school gardening and composting programs.