Students dining in Mansfield Schools and Region 19’s Edwin O. Smith High School cafeterias are in for a treat this month—locally grown treats—in celebration of National Farm to School month in October.
Food Services Director and Chef Maraiah Popeleski-Tilley, starting her second year in this role, has been planning October’s menu and the tasting activities all summer. Her overall emphasis in the three cafeterias is moving toward more scratch cooking and menus featuring local ingredients.
“Farm to School Month provides a great way to call attention to our fresh, local produce and helps students explore new foods,” says Chef Popeleski-Tilley. “Sometimes trying just a bite of something different opens up a new world of eating habits. And the best foods are the fresh foods we grow right here in northeastern Connecticut.”
At Mansfield Elementary School, Mansfield Middle School and E.O. Smith High School, posters and banners have been hung emphasizing the importance of local foods for growing students. At Mansfield Elementary and Mansfield Middle School each “Tasting Tuesday”, Chef Popeleski-Tilley has plans for a vegetable or fruit tasting as part of the lunch wave, including warm cinnamon-dusted apples, beets, and coriander-roasted local carrots. On October 24, to close out the month, local farmer Susan Mitchell will be on hand at the Mansfield Middle School to talk about her surprise “farmer’s choice” vegetable offering it for students to taste.
“When students meet a local farmer who is enthusiastic about what they grow, it leads to a different level of understanding about food and eating. The farmer becomes someone from the community producing something special for them,” says Chef Popeleski-Tilley.
Other menu items to be featured in October in Mansfield’s cafeterias include butternut squash and black bean chili, a “Kale! Caesar!” salad, and a local cabbage cole slaw. Students have regularly come to enjoy pickle chips produced from local cucumbers, and locally grown apples from Ashford’s Horse Listener’s Orchard are on the menu every day throughout the year.
On October 26, grade 3 students at Mansfield Elementary School will participate in the Apple Crunch Challenge with these apples, a project of UConn Extension’s Put Local on Your Tray initiative. The initiative is also organizing a field trip for food service educators to travel to the Tomaquag Indigenous Museum in Exeter, RI. Food educators will learn about native foods favored by indigenous peoples of New England to incorporate into their education and school lunches, such as cranberries, corn, beans, squashes, and maple syrup.
In this community of life-long learners, Mansfield Schools’ food service staff is eager to expand and improve service and offerings. On October 25, Mansfield food services managers will participate in an online webinar, “Culturally Inclusive, Lactose Intolerant-Friendly Recipes and Cook-Along” where they will join along preparing new recipes featuring milk, a staple of school cafeterias.
Mansfield Schools is also active in Taste of Mansfield, a program that works to connect the community with local food. UConn Extension, the Storrs Farmers Market, Mansfield Public Schools, Mansfield Downtown Partnership, and Mansfield Town Departments cooperate in promoting local farms and farmers plus backyard homesteading food ways with residents.
Connecticut emphasizes October 2 to 6 as CT Grown for CT Kids Week as an annual event happening every October in Connecticut, organized by the Connecticut Department of Agriculture. As its website describes, “this week aims to celebrate and support local agriculture, public education and our community commitment to the importance of healthy nutritious meals in schools. Each year, legislators, food service directors, farmers and students gather together through farm to school activities and consumption of local products.”
