Students experience locally-grown, healthy foods
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Six years ago six young leaders in the food industry came together with the common goal of promoting healthy living. The result of their collaboration is known as FoodCorps, which is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders who connect kids to real food that will help them grow up healthy.
The national project is partially based off of Montana FoodCorps, which was started by University of Montana graduate school student Crissie McMullan, one of the six initial founders of FoodCorps.
“I was inspired by meeting so many amazing farmers and ranchers in Montana,” she said. McMullan grew up on a farm in Mississippi, so she knows how important locally grown food is.
“I just wanted to make sure we had good markets and local markets,” McMullan said.
As a co-founder of the national FoodCorps program, she emphasized that the project was widely supported and the founders came from all different parts of the food system.
“There are so many people who are involved in making the vision of local food available in the community,” McMullan said.
From the farmers to the students, FoodCorps creates a system where everyone in a community benefits from healthy, locally grown food.
This year, Polson School district welcomed Lexie Gallegos as their first full time FoodCorps service member. As a part of her job, Gallegos goes into the schools and teaches educational classes on nutrition, chats with the kids in the lunchroom about what is on their tray, and introduces them to local foods.
“I truly believe in what FoodCorps stands for,” Gallegos said.
She loves working with the students within the community and has been pleasantly surprised by the positive reception to local foods. In the last couple of months that she has been working in Polson, Gallegos has noticed that the students are opening up to the idea of healthy and local eating. In the long run she hopes to see their food habits gradually changing to incorporate local foods.
“You are supporting the Montana economy by helping local farms,” Gallegos said.
In addition to that, consuming local foods reduces dangerous emissions because the food doesn’t have to travel far. It is also often easier to get it organic, which is becoming an important factor in the food industry.
Currently, Gallegos has been serving mainly in the two elementary schools and the middle school in Polson. She hopes to start incorporating the high school in her projects.
“I would love to get some of the high school students involved,” Gallegos said. “They are such good role models for the younger kids.”
On Dec. 7, she went into Linderman Elementary School to have kids taste test roasted butternut squash as part of the pilot of Montana Harvest of the Month, a collaboration between the National Center for Appropriate Technology, the Office of Public Instruction, Montana Team Nutrition Program, Montana State University Extension, and FoodCorps Montana, that brings a new local food into the schools each month.
Winter squash is the food item for the month of December, and the butternut squash that Gallegos brought into Linderman came from Paradise Gardens, which is a part of Western Montana Growers Cooperative.
Laura Arvidson is the FoodCorps service member for the Ronan School District. Like Gallegos, she is going into the schools to teach and share the value of healthy local foods with the students.
The Ronan School District has been providing Montana grown vegetables and fruits to elementary students this year through a separate endeavor, the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program. So far, K. William Harvey and Pablo Elementary students have eaten locally grown plums, apples, melons, tomatoes and peppers in their afternoon snack, according to Arvidson.
Last week she also did a taste testing of the winter squash at K. William Harvey as a part of the Harvest of the Month pilot.
“It went really well,” Arvidson said. “They get to vote whether the loved it, liked it, or tried it.”
Out of the 268 participants, 127 students said they loved it, 55 said they liked it, and 86 said they tried it.
Looking forward, Arvidson hopes that they can begin to grow their own food.
“We are working to try to get a garden started at K. William Harvey by the end of this spring,” she said.
Involving students with the process of planting and harvesting their own food gets them a lot more excited and motivated to eat healthy, according to Arvidson.
Eating local “helps us connect to our Montana heritage,” she said.
