The D.C. Farm to School Network works to get more healthy, locally-grown, sustainable foods into Washington, DC school meals.

Tools & Resources for school meal programs:

Monthly Food Services Newsletter – Keeps school food service professionals up to date on local and national farm to school and school food news, updates and events.  Contact Andrea at andrea[at]dcfarmtoschool.org to get on the list.

D.C. School Lunch 101 – Briefly discusses how school lunch works in Washington, DC, including where the money comes from, who makes decisions, and how meals are served.

D.C. Farm to School Toolkit – Helps schools think through ways to incorporate local food into school meals (published in 2009).

School Meals in the Healthy Schools Act – Explains the school meals requirements and incentives in the Healthy Schools Act (published 2010)

D.C. Farm to School Directory – Coming soon! Lists contact information and brief details about schools interested to buy from local farms, and local farms interested to sell to schools.

Salad Bar Workshop – In February 2012 we’re hosting a Salad Bar Workshop with OSSE, where schools will learn why salad bars can help schools highlight local foods, complement their school gardens, and encourage kids to eat more healthy options.  Schools will also learn how to get a salad bar, stock it with produce safely and effectively, and make sure that kids know how to use it appropriately.  Past workshops include the Healthy School Meals Workshop in 2009 and the Healthy Schools Act Workshop in 2010.

Buyer-grower meetings - We coordinate educational field trips and opportunities for farmers and school food service professionals to directly connect.  Our last trip was to the Eastern Shore, where we visited with growers, processors, and distributors of locally-grown food.  Read more in this blog post.

What’s cooking? Here are some profiles of school meal programs with flourishing farm to school programs in Washington, DC.

D.C. Central Kitchen’s Fresh Start Catering – Currently D.C. Central Kitchen prepares meals for seven D.C. public schools and two local schools (Next Step Public Charter School and Washington Jesuit Academy). Their from-scratch meals use as much fresh, local products as possible, primarily from the Shenandoah Valley Produce Auction in Dayton, VA. Additionally, the program employs ex-offenders who’ve turned their lives around and been through DCCK’s culinary job training program. Read more here, and check out their photos from the auction here.

Photo: Fresh Start staff process SVPA produce at Kelly Miller Middle School, from the D.C. Central Kitchen’s Flickr Photostream

CentroNia/D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School – Food Service Director Beatriz Zuluaga and Nutritionist Sofia Bustos took over the food service program from a contracted provider two years ago, and hired staff to make 600 delicious, healthy meals from scratch using entirely fresh, unprocessed ingredients every day. Their meals are served in CentroNia”s pre-school programs (including before and after care) and in D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School’s meals. Their two salad bars feature fresh, local produce from Kilmer’s Farm & Orchard in West Virginia. The school’s garden, managed by City Blossoms, features some of the same fruits and veggies served in the cafeteria.

Photo: Farmer David Marvel from Delaware unloads local watermelon, cauliflower and broccoli at CentroNia (by Christiana Aretta, Storiography)

E.W. Stokes Public Charter School – Under the careful eye of Lisa Dobbs, E.W. Stokes Public Charter School serves fresh, from-scratch meals to its 250 students. They purchase local produce regularly from Kilmer’s Farm & Orchard in West Virginia, and receive donated produce from the Washington Youth Garden for their salad bar. E.W. Stokes’ own school garden also grows some of the produce for the salad bar, which kids absolutely love!

Photo: Derek Kilmer’s apples being sliced for a local apple taste test (by Christiana Aretta, Storiography)

D.C. Public Schools – This year you’ll find a number of fresh, local foods on D.C. Public School cafeteria trays. DCPS has three vendors providing a total of about 60,000 meals/day for their students at 123 schools. Chartwells-Thompsons serves the majority of DCPS schools, and sources local foods primarily from produce distributor Keany Produce. Typical local products include pears, apples, sweet potatoes, broccoli, tomatoes and more. Revolution Foods and D.C. Central Kitchen serve 7 schools each, and include at least 20% local foods in DCPS school meals as defined in the DCPS contract language. Learn more about DCPS school meals on the Food Services website.

 Photo: A DCPS lunch of “Cajun Chicken” with local vegetable medley of zucchini & broccoli with a local fresh pear, The Slow Cook