by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
People from all walks of life recently gathered at Sartell schools to help celebrate two events related to food – National Food Service Week (Oct. 9-13) and Farm to School Month, October.
The events drew food-service employees and students, of course, as well as teachers, parents, police officers, firefighters, some members of the St. Cloud University Huskies football team, local food growers and many other special guests.
Sartell police, firefighters and the Huskies helped serve food to the children in the food line and had a chance to meet, chat and have some verbal fun with the students.
Elementary principals Kip Lynk and Sara Nelson served veggies to the kids.
Everyone involved brought lots of fun to the events. For example, the District Food Service staff coordinated with the Sartell Middle School Student Council and the SMS Technology Department to create a “photo op” for the students and others to wear pairs of goofy, whimsical fruit-and-veggie eyeglasses. Photos were then taken, and the results were placed on a video for all to enjoy.
Food service
The Sartell-St. Stephen School District’s Food Service is led by Brenda Braulick, its director, along with Jayme Ericson, nutrition supervisor, and Marlyce Plante, administrative assistant, and dozens of food preparers and food servers at the district’s four schools.
Food Service and its staff go to great lengths to constantly innovate, encouraging students to try new, nutritious foods and combinations of them. It can become at times a perpetual balancing act between federal lunch requirements and foods prepared and served that students will truly enjoy. That is why the Food Service department strives to offer students a wide variety of foods, allowing them to pick and choose among nutritious – and delicious – offerings.
The following is the Sartell-St. Stephen Food Service mission:
“We are committed to health through good nutrition by offering students delicious, high-quality, nutritious food choices with strong customer acceptability. By exposing them to a variety of different foods, students will learn there are no such things as ‘bad’ foods and that when used in moderation, any food can be incorporated into a healthy diet.”
Farm to School
For years, the Sartell-St. Stephen School District’s Food Service program has been contracting with area agricultural growers to provide locally grown, fresh foods to students at lunchtime.
Known as the “Farm to School” program, it’s catching on nationwide as a way to enhance quality nutrition through locally, freshly harvested products and to help sustain local and area food growers. The program has won wide support, and parent volunteers have helped in many ways, such as coming to Sartell schools to help shuck small mountains of fresh corn-on-the-cob.
Area participants in the Farm to School program for Sartell schools include such agricultural vendors as Collegeville Orchards (fresh apples); Baker’s Acres in Avon (snack peppers, grape tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, broccoli); and Riverside Farms and Ed Fields & Sons, St. Paul area (a Roasted Harvest-brand veggie blend).
School-lunch cooks Jodi Hennemann (left) and Carol Williamson clown around for a video later shown to students during National Food Services Week.
Sartell Fire Marshall Butch Rieland (left) and Sartell Fire Chief Jim Sattler (right) get together with students in a lunch room to help celebrate National Food Services Week and the Farm to School Month in October.26
