Farm to School Case Studies - University of Northern Iowa



Farm to School Case Study: Malcolm Price Laboratory School

Background and Program History

Malcolm Price Laboratory School, also known as Northern University High School (NU High), is the laboratory school for the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls, Iowa. It has 370 K-12 students, and 95 students at the Pre-K Child Development Center. 2009-10 was the first school year for the Grassroots Café: a complete overhaul of the school’s cafeteria system. Changes were sparked by parents’ dissatisfaction with the highly processed, unhealthy options offered before. Through support from the school, the Northern Iowa Food and Farm Partnership, a nonprofit focused on strengthening the local food system, and grant funding, the school stopped contracting meals from an outside food service provider, and started cooking from scratch. An initial grant from the Kellogg Foundation helped the school renovate the kitchen, purchase equipment, and hire staff. Rob Stanley was the food service director for 2009-10, Jacque Bilyeu-Holmes the program manager, and both served as chefs. Additionally, a grant from the Wellmark Foundation, written by the Northern Iowa Food and Farm Partnership to support three schools, helped Rob and Jacque hire additional staff to help with food prep. Other funding sources in the first year included the UNI Dept of Education, Leighty Foundation, and the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture.

Original goals for the program included providing students with healthier, better-tasting food, supporting the local economy, educating students about food and how it affects their health and the health of their community, creating a school garden, and reducing waste. Rob and Jacque focused on making food from scratch, purchase locally when possible, reducing the amount of high fructose corn syrup, transfats, artificial colors, and preservatives in food served, and eliminating unnecessary packaging. Before 2009-2010, most food served came packaged, and was served on disposable trays with plastic silverware and milk in cartons. In 2009, they eliminated individual packaged portions, and began using reusable trays and silverware, as well as pouring milk from cartons into reusable plastic cups.

Milk is purchased from Hansen’s Farm Fresh Dairy, a local producer of non-homogenized, hormone-free milk and other dairy products. They also eliminated desserts from the daily menu and offer a vegetarian option every day. Fresh vegetables and fruit are served daily, and the A La Carte Cart, where students can purchase snacks, has been stocked with all natural and organic snacks such as Luna bars, Clif bars, Annie’s snacks, and dried fruit.

In addition to the changes in the cafeteria, Price Lab has put in a school garden, with a large garden and compost bins near the kitchen, and another smaller bed. They have a school gardener to help coordinate volunteers, guide classroom activities, and help maintain the garden.

Economics

To accomplish large-scale changes to the school lunch offerings, Price Lab School has employed several successful financial strategies. One of the most dramatic changes has been the increase in meal participation. Breakfast participation increased from 23 per day in 2008-2009 to 32 per day in 2009-2010, lunch participation from 160 per day to 220 per day, and the number of lunches served to faculty from 2 per day to 12 per day. They emphasized the importance of faculty involvement by providing lunch to faculty and introducing the program during pre school planning, attending the Fall 2009 professional development day to encourage faculty participation and answer questions, and conducting a faculty survey and implementing changes based on results. They also met with parents mid-year to discuss how the program was going, and reached out to students by informally surveying them during lunch and by visiting classrooms to discuss healthy food choices, balanced diets, farming and local foods, and other related topics. The initial changes were made with grant support, and now that the school has a kitchen that can handle more from-scratch food preparation, they are exploring ways of improving efficiency, and in the third year of the program, they will focus on making the program self-sustaining economically.

Local Food Purchases

Grassroots Café is committed to buying sourcing food locally whenever it is available and fits within their budget. In the 2009-2010 school year, about 37% of food purchases, in terms of dollars spent, were local. All milk served is sourced locally, as well as most meat, and produce when in season. Rob and Jacque developed relationships with many local farmers, and also integrated school garden produce into the meals when possible. Additionally, students learned about local foods through classroom visits and time spent in the garden.

Grassroots Café used grant funds to have large, colorful banners made for the lunchroom. Each wall hanging highlights a local farm that supplies food to the program. The banners have photos of the farmers, land, and animals, as well as fun and informative facts about the farms. Making students aware of where the food they’re eating is coming from, and making this information fun and relevant, is a vital component of Grassroots Café’s mission.

Program Assets

The impetus for the program was a group of motivated parents, and having a committed, passionate group behind the project helped build momentum and support. The Northern Iowa Food and Farm Partnership worked with Rob and Jacque to access grant funding and connect them with local farmers. The NIFFP is a nonprofit at the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Energy and Environmental Education, seeking to expand and strengthen the local food system. They act as a regional co-lead agency for the National Farm to School Network, and work with Grassroots Cafe through grants from the Wellmark Foundation and Kellogg Foundation.

Grant support was crucial to getting the program off the ground, due to the need for kitchen renovations and for hiring a food service director who was committed to the project. Rob and Jacque’s dedication and passion, and their deep belief in the changes being made, were vital to the program’s success. Another asset is the Cedar Valley area’s talented, dedicated farmers. They also see the importance of a strong connection between schools and local farms, and work with Grassroots Café and with other local schools to best meet the needs of schools interested in purchasing local foods. Local newspapers and other media have also helped the program by being interested in running stories on farm-to-school, and raising awareness of the Price Lab School’s accomplishments.

Challenges, Solutions, and Future Goals

Though the Grassroots Café accomplished amazing changes within only one year, the “total overhaul” approach was often stressful and overwhelming for the staff. Looking back on the year, Rob and Jacque have said that they have needed to scale back on the number of items cooked from scratch and hire more staff to make the program sustainable. To ease the strain on the kitchen, they adjusted menu items and set priorities about what would always be purchased locally and made from scratch. Limited time and staff was one of the major challenges for Grassroots Café in its first year. Allocating grant funds to staff time is one way of alleviating some of the time concerns for the next year, and they are hopeful that the groundwork laid in the first year, such as renovating the kitchen, developing menus, and making connections with local farmers, will help subsequent years run smoothly and help develop a self-sustaining program. Because one major challenge for Grassroots Café was starting entirely from scratch, surveying parents, faculty and students was tremendously helpful in setting goals and priorities, and monitoring success. The goal for year one was to get the kitchen remodeled, and to get the program off the ground. Year two, the 2010-2011 school year, will focus on efficiency, and making sure that the changes made in the first year can be carried on in the future. In the third year, Grassroots Café will focus on making the program financially self-sustaining. Malcolm Price Laboratory School made dramatic changes to their lunch program over a short period of time, and focusing on one major goal each year is key to sustaining the program long-term.

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