Next week kids will be back in the classroom, and back in their school’s cafeterias. Emma Laut wants to teach them to make more nutritional choices.

Laut is a FoodCorps/AmeriCorps service member serving at Ferndale Lower Elementary. She will host a free program Wednesday, Aug. 23 to give kids a hands-on learning experience about cooking and creating healthy recipes from locally sourced ingredients.

“A vast majority of schools are, no pun intended, hungry … for this kind of programming!” Laut said. She served as the nutrition and school garden leader with kindergarten through second-grade students at Ferndale Lower Elementary last year to create hands-on learning experiences, prioritize healthy lunches and promote a schoolwide culture of health.

FoodCorps Michigan is part of a national initiative, aligned with the AmeriCorps service network, to deliver nutrition education around the state. AmeriCorps is a civil society program with up to 80,000 volunteers serving to improve education, public safety, the environment and public health. There are more than 200 FoodCorps service members across the nation.

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It’s not always easy to change the way school-aged children think about what they eat, and how it links up to their health and to their communities. But FoodCorps is creating awareness and change, one school at a time.

Daniel Marbury, the FoodCorps Central and Southern Regions Program Manager says, “Our goal in Michigan, like in the other states where we work, is to help kids grow up healthy and to help them build a relationship with healthy food.” In Michigan, FoodCorps is active at six school sites, working in the classroom, in the garden and through engagement in the community.

Much of the transformative work that the FoodCorps members do is connecting kids with healthy food, starting in the school cafeterias. Marbury says, “half of many Michigan students’ daily and weekly calories come from the food they eat at school.”

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NationSwell talks to LaBria Lane, a FoodCorps AmeriCorps member with the Crim Fitness Foundation, as it examines how national service is helping Flint recover from its lead crisis.

LaBria Lane spends her days inside the greenhouses of Holmes STEM Academy, a middle school in Flint, Mich. She keeps her hair and nails short, ideal for gardening and teaching children the benefits of eating fresh produce.

“Fruits and vegetables are important everywhere, but if you zoom down into Flint and talk about the lead crisis, vitamins in fruits and vegetables help to deter lead from storing in the bones,” says Lane.

Lane is part of a group of service year corps members who began working in Flint in 2014 — the same time that the city’s lead situation was making headlines.

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1. Seeds & seedlings

The first signs of spring awakening are seed coming of packets and getting into the soil. Lindsay Hall’s students in Traverse City, Michigan might not be able to pronounce “embryo” and “cotyledon” yet, but they’re excited by how cool seeds are.

2. First sprouts

Jordyn Kessler’s elementary schoolers in Chicopee, MA aren’t daydreaming when the look out their classroom window, they’re peeking at their sprouts! Windows covered by sprout houses and sills covered by seed cups are sure signs of a healthy school food environment.

3. Garden builds and work days

You can’t just jump right into the school garden when the weather starts to warm up. First things first: garden beds need to be built, signs need to be put up, and weeds need to be pulled. Thankfully, volunteers from the school community can help get the job done fast. In just one garden workday, Mariah Marten-Ray in Paso Robles, CA and volunteers prepped 38 garden beds and covered the space in between with wood chips.

4. Dirty hands

It’s not just volunteers getting their hands dirty. The Garfield Elementary chapter of Sprout Scouts, the trademark FoodCorps after school club, recently took advantage of their first sunny day outdoors to prep the soil and plant spinach seeds. “Despite some hesitation, Scouts were pretty excited to show off their dirty hands,” shares Service Member Nathan Spalding.

5. Square feet

Gardens are a fun tool for young mathematicians. Dasia Harmon’s Atlanta students discussed what a square foot is, how to measure one, and how many seeds belong in each square foot of a garden bed. For all of their hard work crunching numbers, the elementary schoolers will soon be rewarded with carrots, beets, and spinach!

6. First harvests

Even in places with mild winters like Oakland, CA, spring can give plants an extra energizing and productive push. FoodCorps Member Lydia Yamaguchi sums it up nicely: “ITS SPRING AND EVERYTHING IS BUDDING AND FLOWERING AND GROWING IN THE GARDEN AND I LOVE IT.” 

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While in Detroit, I stayed a night with my fellow service members Cassandra Van Dam and Dominic Sweeney, who serve in Detroit. That’s one great perk of serving FoodCorps they don’t tell you when you sign up – you now have couches to crash on across the state (and the country, for that matter).

Although I was taking a little time off while I was down there, I asked Cassandra if she might be willing to have me tag along on a few of her lessons to help out and observe. I asked on a whim, but I am so glad I did!

It was really lovely to watch how she interacted with the kids, how the kids interacted with each other, and overall get a feel for what her service was like day to day. The urban school communities that Cassandra serves in Detroit are very different than the rural communities that I interact with in Traverse City, so I enjoyed being immersed in the unfamiliar.  Not only did I get a taste of how the schools she serves operate, I was able to observe how Cassandra operates as a service member. I  learned some really clever ideas from her that I am going to take back with me to my service (such as telling the kids to run in place while a blender is running to symbolize energy while making smoothies!).

I would encourage this kind of collaboration between service members. If you ever have the time or the means, visit one another, even if just for one lesson. Although I only had time to shadow Cassandra’s lesson, I have no doubt I would learn new and different things if I shadowed each and every one of my fellow service members.

The experience reminded me how each of our service is unique and for that reason, it is essential not to compare  your service to others. It’s easy (at least for me) to look at what you’re doing in your service and think you’re not doing enough, or what others are doing is cooler, or better, or whatever-er. Visiting Cassandra reminded me that we are all doing amazing things, and we are doing our best with the resources we have to work with. That will look different for every service member and every service site. It’s just the nature of the beast.

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“January-March: ​After members take a much deserved winter break, they come back with renewed hopes and plans for the remainder of their terms. When these hopes and plans don’t immediately come to fruition, it can make it difficult to return to the reality of service. This can be followed by negative feelings about their overall experience and critical reflection and reevaluation of their role in the community. The decreasing sunlight hours and winter weather don’t help as service members have fewer opportunities to engage their students outdoors in the garden and it is too early to start planning for spring.”

Man, the people who write these things sure know what they are talking about. Lack of sunlight? Few opportunities to engage students outdoors? It’s almost like they are living in Michigan, observing our daily lives in the north where “the slump” seems especially applicable.

In this phase of service, “service members may need a little extra support and appreciation. For that reason, FoodCorps holds Regional Mid-Year Gatherings in order to “bring members together, boost moral, and provide fresh insight through training.”

At the end of January, Northern Michigan FoodCorps service members Lindsay Hall and Julia Paige set off to Raleigh, North Carolina to do just that. We left feelings of stagnation behind in Michigan in hopes of gaining some inspiration and a hefty dose of Vitamin D at the South/Central Mid Year gathering. We spent a week engaging with our fellow service members from Mississippi, Arkansas, Iowa, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan, along with FoodCorps staff. We partook in thoughtful discussions, attended inspiring sessions and workshops, and now we’re back home with a little more pep to our step, or “a little more umph and a little less slump”, as our fellow service member, Chandra Brown phrased it.

Although it’s not quite spring yet, we can see the horizon. We have faith that our service and every step along the way is making a difference in our communities.

Below, both Lindsay and Julia recount their favorite part of mid-year gathering, and what they will be bringing back to their service.

Highlights for Julia:

I was really inspired by the peer to peer sessions that I attended. These were workshops put on by service members, for service members. From healthy food marketing in school cafeterias to classroom management, I learned some great tips from my peers. The experience made me in awe of the amount of collective knowledge and expertise that all of us have together.

Highlights for Lindsay:

I think overall what I enjoyed the most was just being able to reconnect with everyone to share our stories and knowledge. It can be hard sometimes to work as an individual in one small community, but by coming together, I’m reminded of this larger movement that we’re all contributing to and it is really affirming.

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I went to witness one of my taste test tested recipes, apple ginger slaw, being featured on the menu!! Note my excitement by the exclamation points. I am excited because this is the ideal result of FoodCorps cafeteria taste tests: not only for kids to try new things, but also for fresh, local dishes that are “taste test approved” to end up on the school menu. Here’s a photo of me, with Tom Freitas, the Food and Nutrition Services Director for the Traverse City Area Public Schools, looking excited to eat some slaw.

The fish tacos were topped with the fresh apple and ginger slaw, the recipe for which comes from Minneapolis Public School’s Culinary and Wellness Services. When we chose to feature the recipe in a taste test at Traverse Heights Elementary, which is also within Traverse City Area Public Schools, we chose it because it incorporated the Harvest of the Month, apples, but also some more interesting ingredients, like kohlrabi and fresh ginger. When you incorporate familiar ingredients into a recipe, such as apples, it often makes the kids more apt to try something new, such as kohlrabi.

At the taste test I conducted, which was held in October at Traverse Heights Elementary, over 73% of the students voted that they either liked or loved the slaw. I am not sure how the high schoolers would have voted after trying it today, but I can tell you that at least I loved it!  

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In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, FoodCorps service members in Northern Michigan, Julia Paige and Lindsay Hall, joined others across the nation to set out on a National Day of Service. They took on the task of preparing a meal at The Goodwill Inn, an emergency shelter located in Traverse City, MI that provides shelter, three meals a day and employment assistance to families and individuals experiencing homelessness.

Lindsay, Julia, and their co-volunteer served spaghetti and meatballs, solicited salad, cut up cauliflower, and bowled berries for the guests at the Goodwill Inn. Below the two interview each other about their experience.

J: How did you feel the guests received the meal?

L: The meal seemed well received by the guests. Some guests expressed specific concerns about their diet and the meal that was being served, but we were more than happy to accommodate to their preferences. We met them with a smile, and received the same in return which was really nice. I think breaking down the barriers between server and those being served is really important. We’re all human, and it’s nice to acknowledge that basic connection. I’d also like to mention that not one guest went by without saying thank you. I think that says a lot.

J: What did you think of the food being prepared at the Goodwill Inn?

L: The food at the Goodwill Inn was thoughtfully prepared and served. The quality of the food was noticeable as our volunteer coordinator instructed, “Don’t serve anything you wouldn’t serve your family.” They obviously hold their work to high standards and aim to treat their guests with dignity and respect. I guess, in short, if I was allowed to jump in line and eat with them, I would! And, not to be Miss Nutrition, but all five food groups were present creating a well-balanced (MyPlate) meal! I was also really pleased to see the amount of donations in the kitchen. The fresh fruit and desserts we were serving that day all came from donations to the Inn. I was happy to see so much tangible evidence of support from the community.

J: How do you feel that your actions honored Dr. Martin Luther King Jr?

L: I think he would be proud to see a community coming together and supporting each other. Speaking for myself at least, treating each other with kindness and respect strengthens us and encourages us to be better individuals-the exact qualities MLK stood for. It seems like that would be an easy thing to do, but I guess that’s not always the case. I appreciate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for voicing such a strong opinion and call to action towards being a good human being. He would be proud to see all of us around the country joining forces to take a day of action and not just a day off.

L: Was there anything challenging about this volunteer shift?

J: It was challenging to get the crusted noodles cleaned off the pan…haha kidding (but it actually was). In all honesty it was challenging for me to serve the guests some of the packaged baked goods that had been donated. I knew they were full of preservatives and syrups and hydrogenated oils – definitely not something I would serve to my family! However, I understand that those are the only kinds of desserts that get donated to them, since they last so long. Lindsay and I tried to push the fruit as a dessert option instead, and our co-volunteer said he was surprised by how many guests took fruit!

L: What is one takeaway from this experience or something new that you learned about your community?

J: I was inspired by a man who helped us prepare our meal (Mark). He is a working father of two who lives over 30 minutes away, but he makes the effort every other Monday to donate his time to the guests at the Goodwill Inn. His dedication to help struck me. Often times, after a long day at the schools I just go home and veg out with my friends. I could easily be like Mark and take two evenings a month to help others instead of watch Netflix.  I guess one thing that I will take away from this experience is that donating your time is easy and rewarding- it just takes dedication.

L: How does this correlate to your FoodCorps service term?

J: Good question Lindsay… This correlates to my service term because MLK was a man who believed in building bridges between communities. That is something I am trying to do at my schools everyday. Building bridges between teachers, parents, farmers, and students (to name a few). The work that the Goodwill Inn carries out builds bridges as well, between businesses that have food to donate, community members who have time to donate, and those experiencing homelessness who have a need to be filled. It’s really amazing what they do there with food that would be otherwise wasted. It makes me proud of my community.

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Discussing ideas with teachers, we narrowed it down to open ended, creative projects— projects that students could work on at their desks and channel some of their excitement into without getting too rowdy. Many teachers have these types of projects in their back pocket already. Together, we worked on giving them a little FoodCorps flair.

One teacher mentioned that a drawing project was something the kids enjoyed very much. We decided upon making holiday thank you cards for the kitchen staff. The kids could just draw or they could draw notes to one of the most under-appreciated individuals at their school: the cafeteria staff. Another teacher said that the kids hadn’t had a chance to make festive crafts yet, though they cut out and decorated paper trees in previous years. Although they could just cut a  tree shape out of paper, I suggested that they build  edible Christmas trees made of green apple slices and pomegranate seeds (an idea I got from Cassandra, a fellow FoodCorps Michigan service member).

Both activities were a major hit! The kids surprised me with their creativity and thoughtfulness. The cafeteria staff smiled while reading notes such as “you don’t feel like a lunch lady, you feel like a BFF.” The kids who built edible Christmas trees couldn’t wait to tell their parents that they tried pomegranate seeds. The activities demonstrate that teachers need not dedicate time specifically to promoting healthy eating habits or changing the way kids think about food. They can accomplish these things easily by giving creative projects a food related spin.

By doing this (pardon my liberties with the classic saying), one can plant two flowers from one seed. Plant the ideas that healthy food is fun and that the people who make it deserve appreciation.

I will admit that there are aspects of farm to school programs that require a lot of time and effort. These activities, however, do not. They are easy, require no extra time, and can serve as an excellent foundation upon which to build a farm to school program.

Although they may seem trivial, little messages add up to form a child’s ideas about the world around them. Practice creativity with purpose with a child in your life. You might find it makes a bigger impact than you expect.

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This event was four months in the making, because not only was the squash served at the school, it was grown on the school’s farm too. Mackenzie has a school garden and a one acre farm, where students help plant, water, and harvest a variety of vegetables. This year over 1,000 pounds of produce was harvested. We grew potatoes, green beans, black eyed peas, cucumbers, pumpkins and acorn squash. The majority of the work was done during summer school. Middle school students put in transplants, helped lay plastic for weed control, and pulled binding weed every week. Even the kindergarten class got in on the action. They were the watering committee, and checked on the plants every day, even in the 90 degree heat. It was a learning experience for everyone involved.

In September when school resumed, we realized just how large of a harvest 1,000 pounds was. We began making plans for the vegetables. A farm stand was held at parent-teacher conferences where families and staff could take home produce for free, and some was used for classroom lessons, but we still had so much more.

When the idea first came to mind to do a school-wide taste test with the acorn squash, hesitation and fear set in. Lunch time at Mackenzie is nothing short of chaotic. Still, we pitched the idea to our kitchen manager, Ms. Terrell, and she was very excited about it! There was immediate support from teachers and administrators too. The farm had become the talk of the school. Pumpkins and squash were appearing in the office, in the library, on teacher’s desks, and the harvest was slowly consuming the parent resource room. It just made sense to do an event during which the whole school could participate.

Students were thrilled to try something new in the lunchroom! Most of the kids did not know what acorn squash was and had never tried it before, but that did not stop them from eagerly grabbing their sample. They smelled the cinnamon and saw the fun buttery yellow color and soon announced they liked it. Students from kindergarten through eighth grade participated, and the majority said they liked it or loved it. It was hard to get an accurate number because the voting board turned into an art board, but I took the many requests for seconds as a positive sign. Many teachers also tried acorn squash for the first time  that day. One of the third grade teachers liked it so much she later told me she bought some for Thanksgiving and served it to her family.

Making the taste test a reality was truly a team effort. The middle school students harvested over 100 acorn squash, then our lead garden teacher, Ms. Brownfield, made sure they all got inside and sorted. The kitchen staff and our head district chef cleaned, cut, and roasted all of them. Everyone went above and beyond to make the event a success.

The taste test is one of the proudest moments I have had in my service. It was an invaluable experience to bring into the school and helped us take a step towards a schoolwide culture of health.  This year the school came together through the farm. Students and staff were very proud to say everything was “Grown at Mackenzie.”  People are already asking what will be planted this spring and which vegetables will be in the cafeteria. Stay tuned: the farm to school taste test could become an annual event.

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