Quaker Valley School District students this school year are getting a special meal made from scratch each month as part of a program designed to promote local agriculture and educate young folks about what they eat.
The district has joined in the Pennsylvania Harvest of the Month program.
It was first implemented in the 2020-21 school year as a partnership between the state Department of Education and Penn State University’s Project PA.
The program was initially funded through a USDA Farm to School grant.
Its ingredients include downloadable materials — such as a calendar featuring a Pennsylvania-grown/produced product each month — for schools, child and adult care centers/day care homes and summer feeding sites. The program also has videos on how to procure, select, handle and prepare each item for child nutrition programs as well as state-approved recipes and activity guides for classrooms and cafeterias.
Foods include strawberries in June, beets in July, tomatoes in August, peppers in September, apples in October and winter squash in November.
Quaker Valley director of food and nutrition services Carla Escribano said she decided to implement it this school year, and so far, the results have been very positive.
“It’s definitely challenging because it’s more work, but it’s very satisfying because we know we’re providing the best that we can to all the students,” she said. “It’s not only providing the food to them and having something locally grown, but it is also about education, like, ‘What is a tomato? Where does the tomato come from? Is it a fruit or is it a vegetable?’”
The nutrition department promotes the meal of the month through its QV Instagram page, as well as through education forms for families.
The district picks up the products, food staffers prepare it the following day and serve it the next.
“The way we pick the farms depends on three things,” Escribano said. “One is procurement. How much is it? What is the best pricing (and) the quality and that it is 100% grown locally in their farms.”
Quaker Valley students in late October were given apple crisps made with apples from Soergel Orchards.
The district bought 400 pounds of apples and 20 gallons of apple cider from the Wexford-based producer.
Soergel vice president Eric Voll said he has noticed an increase in support across the state to help encourage local buying of fresh fruits and vegetables the last few years.
“Based on the reaction that we’ve got and the relationships we’ve built with some of the local school districts, the food purveyors at the districts seem to see the value in that as well,” Voll said. “It helps everybody from the growers to the districts to the students that get to try something new that perhaps they never had before. It’s been a nice chain of events that’s happened over the last few years.”
Voll said North Hills and North Allegheny school districts have also purchased apples from the orchard. The October order was the first he could recall from Quaker Valley.
Fresh fruits and vegetables are available every day at Quaker Valley. Cooking from scratch has also increased since Escribano joined the district in 2018.
She said the monthly meals have been a welcome addition to the menu. She plans to get this month’s winter squash from Janoskis Farm & Greenhouse in Findlay Township.
More about the program
Harvest of the Month has no registration requirements, meaning there is no record of how many school districts or centers make use of the program and there is no designated list of farmers to use.
Elaine Theresa McDonnell, assistant research professor at Penn State University’s Department of Nutritional Sciences and director of Project PA, said that gives agencies and food producers the freedom to choose who they work with and how.
“When we reached out to other states about their programs and talked to them about how they did the programs, some states did have a sign-in process,” she said. “That allows you to track how many schools are using it, but the downside of that is that’s one additional barrier to accessing the program. We didn’t want anything in place that would deter schools from using it. It’s just open to anyone to access and download materials.”
Participating agencies are also not bound to use the ingredients listed on the food calendar during those months.
However, McDonnell said the calendar was carefully crafted with input from local producers so items suggested were in their optimal months for in-season flavor and nutrition.
Multiple food service directors were also involved in program development. Recipes were among the most sought-after materials.
“Not surprisingly, there were not a lot of recipes for schools featuring asparagus or mushrooms,” McDonnell said. “We did a lot of searching for recipes. We also had another round of funding where we worked with eight school districts in Pennsylvania to develop recipes for five of the Harvest of the Month items. Pittsburgh Public Schools was one of the schools that we worked with, as well as North Hills.”
She called the program a win-win for students and Pennsylvania producers and farmers with her favorite recipes being apple and beet baked oatmeal and haluski.
Harvest of the Month has grown through various means, including its items being included in PDE monthly newsletters to food service directors.
There are webinars and other professional development such as free summer culinary training sessions.
More information is available at paharvestofthemonth.org.