Full Webinar Transcript

Laura Thompson (00:28):

We are going to go ahead and get started. Thank you so much everyone for joining us today. We are super excited about this webinar today on Farm to School with Lauren Couchois of School Food Rocks. My name is Laura Thompson. I’m the marketing manager here at Health-e Pro where we do menu planning and nutrient analysis software for school districts, CACFP centers, state agencies, etc. For a little bit of housekeeping with today’s webinar, we are recording this webinar. So if you need to step away or if you want to pass this along to a colleague we will be recording this and we will be sending this out to everyone who is registered. So if you’ve missed something or you want to come back to it later, you want to pass it along, we will be emailing this out to you tomorrow.

Laura Thompson (01:43):

If you have any questions throughout this webinar that you would like us to tackle at the end of the webinar, please put it in the Q&A at the bottom. We will get to it at the end and many of you have submitted questions as you registered as well, so we will try and get to those as well. We know that there’s also a chat box, but we ask that you put any questions in the Q&A because with as many as we have on this webinar today. It can get a little bit unwieldy if everybody is in the chat box. So we ask that you put any questions in the Q&A.

Laura Thompson (02:12):

So introducing our speaker today. I’m super excited that Lauren is here. She has 13 years in school nutrition holding various positions within that time ranging from menu planner to director. She is a registered dietitian and obtained her SNS certification in 2016. She works as lead dietitian and consultant for School Food Rocks and at Greenville County School District in South Carolina, she is zealous about changing the face of school meals and letting the public know about the amazing work all of you do on a daily basis. Her favorite aspects about being a school nutrition professional is working with special education students to help them obtain culinary skills that they can utilize in the workforce, as well as teaching nutrition, education and healthy lifestyles with a focus on farm-to-school initiatives. I was super excited when she was recommended to us to do this topic because I have seen what she has done in this space for a long time now and have heard her do podcasts on it and was super excited. So thank you Lauren for being here today.

Lauren Couchois (03:13):

Thank you. I am super excited to be here. I hope this is a wonderful hour for everybody and if you have questions as we go along, like Laura said, please put them in the chat box. But I love questions, so if we’re going through and I don’t mention something that you would like to know more about, like don’t hold back, let me know. I am here for you guys today, so very excited to go ahead and get started. Now, when it comes to farm-to-school for me, I like to think about the why of what we do. I think just school nutrition in general you know, are the children are at the forefront of our minds and in our hearts. We have this really great graphic here from the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations talking about all the benefits of school gardens.

Lauren Couchois (03:56):

Of course it helps students learn about healthy foods, where they’re from, how to grow them. It gives them a little bit more of a personal touch with nature. It’s a great tool for us to talk about healthy lifestyles and better nutrition. And then we also have some outside factors that happen when students work in school gardens that have a lot to do with working as a team being involved with people that they might not, you know, speak with in their classroom normally. But for me, the biggest reason of why is kids are more likely to eat things if they’re part of the growing process. These pictures here are from students that I

did a really cool cucumber harvest with and the little guy in the green shirt there as we were going through, he was like, you know what, I think I want to be a farmer.

Lauren Couchois (04:44):

And that was from us just harvesting cucumbers off of two vines that I had growing on a trellis in a school garden. The other guy there in the gray shirt was like, I know about cucumbers. I didn’t know they grew on vines and I don’t think I’ve ever had one. And he could not have been more excited to try the food. They were part of the growing process, they were part of harvesting it and it gave them some onus of what they’re eating and that made them way more curious and excited to try things. So it’s a great tool too to get kids eating healthier things for them that hopefully start at a younger age and lasts them through their lifetime. So for me, that’s my biggest why is it can impact a child from a very early age and hopefully through their whole lives.

Lauren Couchois (05:30):

This next slide here is one of my favorite stories to tell. In regards to if kids are apart of the growing process, they will eat it. This is where we grew bok choy. As I started this talk with these children, I asked, has anybody ever had bok choy? They’re like, no. I said, has anybody even heard of bok choy? And they’re like, that’s the noise a chicken makes. I was like, yeah, okay. Kinda <laugh>. It’s also a vegetable. It’s one of the oldest ones. It comes from Asia and we had this really cool talk about bok choy, but we harvested it. They were a part of it. We gave it to our kitchen team, they cleaned it up, prepared it, cooked it. And you can see my little SpongeBob friend there in the yellow sweatshirt on my right. He was just into it the whole time.

Lauren Couchois (06:14):

Never had bok choy in his life, never heard of it. But that day in the cafeteria knew that was the bok choy that he had harvested and could not have been more excited to try it. And the cool thing about bok choy for me, other than that the kids had never heard of it and wanted to eat it was, you see he’s trying like the dark green part there. He tried that and he was like, Hmm, I don’t know if I like bok choy, but let me try the white part and see if that’s different. We didn’t instruct him to do that at all. That was his own curiosity. That was him being adventurous. That was him knowing that when we harvested the bottom part was white. So I love this bok choy story because it is truly going back to that if kids are a part of the process, they are more likely to eat those foods.

Lauren Couchois (07:00):

I know one of the biggest questions for everybody is how do I get started? And it is typically a little intimidating and it can be a big undertaking to get started, but for me it starts with a checklist. So as I’m meeting with somebody and I want to talk about, you know, why do you want a school garden to me? I go, there’s so many different types of school gardens. So what kind do you want? What will be the purpose of your garden? Is it to grow things from seed? Is it to grow herbs only? Do you only have space for a container garden? Do we have space to till? Does your space have sunlight? Does it have a water source? You know, what kind of supplies are you going to need? What do you already have on hand? Where’s the money coming from?

Lauren Couchois (07:46):

Who do you have a available for your garden? And what kind of timeline are you looking not only to get your garden up and running, but long-term plans for your garden too. So starting with this I’m assuming a lot of you on the webinar today are from food service. When I go into schools and I’m meeting with principals or teachers talking to them about these things, sometimes it gets them thinking too of things they weren’t thinking about. Usually we have somebody super interested in a school garden, they don’t

know where to start. I go in to speak with them and as I go through these questions with them, they realize like, oh, I can’t just throw some soil out there and a couple of seeds and see what happens. Like there’s much more involved to it as well. So once I go through that checklist, I talk about best recommendations with them and things to take into consideration.

Lauren Couchois (08:34):

Always have a point person. I call that my school garden champion. I am the school garden champion, I feel like for the nation, but when I go into a school, I can’t be at every school every day for the entire school year. I need somebody that I can communicate with that is going to be the person that will take this on. You also need that cheerleader to be somebody not afraid to try to get support. Depending on the size of your school, depending on the size of your garden, it’s going to be so much more than one person can handle. So getting your point person but then understanding that they’re going to have to kind of champion this and, and gain support. Thinking about your funding source. Some schools are truly blessed with an amazing PTA and PTA funds. That’s a great source for them. And sometimes the PTAs have, you know, generous things to contribute, but they don’t even think that this could be something to contribute to.

Lauren Couchois (09:28):

So a lot of this all comes back to communication. Talking with your principals, with your teachers, get involved with your PTA. You might not want to be a PTA volunteer because like who does, but get involved with them so that they understand you guys can be a part of this process too. Grants, there are so many grants out there, we’ll talk a little bit more about that as we go through today. But grants to me seem almost unlimited. The tricky part is writing a grant and also the timing of grants, but we’ll get into that a little bit later. You can also look for donations. You know, donations don’t have to just be monetary either. It is amazing what your local stores will do. Your big box stores will donate to you as well, but also people’s time. That is one of the most valuable donations that I think you can get for a school garden, especially at the first start-up of a school garden.

Lauren Couchois (10:23):

Our people’s times to come in and help you out. So think about those things as we go through. Also about the location of your garden. Make it reasonable. You know, if this is your very first garden, I don’t know how many people have said to me, I want to do a school garden but I’m not a gardener. And I’m like, cool. Me too. When I started this, I knew nothing. My intro was a science teacher back when I worked in Florida who had like two container gardens or five gallon buckets in her container garden that held cherry tomatoes. And we harvested those tomatoes, we put them on our line. We made this awesome announcement throughout the school. Everybody Miss Hasid’s tomatoes are apart of your lunch today. Be sure to grab a salad. We sold out of salads that day. And when I went out there thinking like I’m going to get these really cool pictures of these kids and their salads and their tomatoes, by the time I got out there, they had salad cups with lettuce in it, but the tomatoes had already been eaten.

Lauren Couchois (11:24):

Again, if they’re a part of it, they’re going to eat it. That came from two five gallon buckets, this amazing impact we had on their school day. So don’t think it has to be like, oh, I’ve got a half an acre here that I wish I could do something with. You can always start small. You can expand from there. But also again, going back to that checklist, what’s your water source? What’s your sunlight? What’s your drainage? What kind of soil do you have? So we can have these awesome big dreams and get to those big dreams by starting small first. That’s totally fine. Maintaining your garden, thinking about your volunteers, that is going to be key. Organizing people is not my strong suit, but getting somebody usually from the PTA, they’re pretty organized. Somebody like that that can help organize your volunteers for you is awesome.

Lauren Couchois (12:13):

Thinking about how you’re going to maintain your garden over long breaks, school schedules are fantastic. It’s a, you know, number one reason why people like to work for a school district. But those long breaks, sometimes it could be a long weekend. Sometimes we have fall breaks, thanksgiving breaks, winter breaks, spring break. Who’s going to be watching the garden during that time? And if you can’t have somebody watch the garden during that time, do you have a water source that can run on its own without somebody having to go out there and water the garden the summer? It is one of the hardest things about farm to school school gardens is that typically the best growing season happens to be the time when schools are out right in the summer. But we have summer schools that we can totally bring in and have be a part of this.

Lauren Couchois (12:57):

You know, those kids are there, they don’t want to be in a classroom all the time. It’s also a great way to incorporate some or incorporate some curriculum into summer school. Get them out into the garden. We’ll talk a little bit more about that too later. But maintaining the garden isn’t just for your startup. It isn’t just for the season that you’re there. It’s the whole school year long. And what is your long-term plan? Is this because I just want to try it and see what happens? Is it that I hope that I start a garden that lasts, you know, beyond my time in the school district and once I retire? So thinking about that will also start to formulate the way that you tackle starting a school garden. The design of it and what you need for it as well.

Lauren Couchois (13:40):

So the other thing that I love to say, school gardens don’t just have to be produce gardens. There is so much to gardening outside of just what we eat mostly starting with how food is even made in pollinators. Kids love pollinators even to the bees. I do a lot with talking with kids about bees because they are so into our flowers. You could literally hold a flower with a bee on it and the bees like, cool, just don’t touch me. You know, the kids love to see like, hey, they’re into this, they’re not into us. Leave them alone. I like talking with kids too about we need these pollinators, otherwise our food won’t grow. So I find it to be very important to use native plants to your area. It doesn’t always work. If you have to use other pollinators that don’t, you know, typically grow in your area, that’s cool.

Lauren Couchois (14:27):

We’re here to teach the kids. That’s totally fine. Use what’s available to you and use what you like. If you like it, you’re going to be more involved in it. I also like flowers that are part of the pollination process, but that you can also then put back into your school. I’ve seen school districts do really cool things with growing flowers and then selling them as fundraisers to put the money back into the garden. It’s an awesome way to make that sustainable without you having to constantly get grants, donations, go out and solicit for more money. You know, making your garden work for you and being able to put money back into it is awesome. I didn’t know a thing about zinnias until moved to South Carolina. Turns out they’re my favorite flower. I love zinnias for school gardens because they grow quickly and the more that you cut, the more flowers that will grow.

Lauren Couchois (15:12):

So you can get tons and tons and tons of bouquets out of zinnias in a very short window of time. They are only annuals, but they’re a fun learning tool for the kids. Walking gardens are great for kids and stone gardens. It’s also a really good way for you to get other people involved from the school in your garden. I’ve seen a number of teachers think like, oh, that’s the art or that’s the STEAM teacher’s thing. That’s the science teacher’s thing. That’s not mine. But you get your art teacher involved to say, Hey, can you help us make things for the garden? Can you help us color these bricks that we’re going to be putting in our

garden? Can you help us design? Can you, you know, incorporate your PE class coming out there. We do a lot of fun things with scavenger hunts. So walking gardens, stone gardens, things like that are a great way to get the rest of your school involved for people who might not think that the garden is their place.

Lauren Couchois (16:04):

Beause the garden is everybody’s place. Everybody is there to utilize it. Other things you can do that are not just produce related would be like some people call them. What am I trying to say here? They call, I like to call them sensory gardens. Tranquility gardens, that’s the other thing that I hear. I like sensory more than tranquility because some people get a little like, well my kids aren’t going to go out there and meditate all day. I’m like, they could, that would be cool. But gardening isn’t for everybody either. Like, not everybody wants to get dirty, but some kids need some sensory outlets and sensory control and you can have awesome garden spaces for them that have nothing to do with getting in the dirt or getting dirty. Here we have an outdoor classroom where we utilize a tree that was cut down to make seats for the kids.

Lauren Couchois (16:53):

The other picture there where it’s kinda got the music notes in the background is a really cool sensory garden from Portsmouth County. Those took some just, you know, things that they had on hand, put it up. Now you have little drums, you have musical outlets for the kids. We also did back to the picture, the outdoor garden, if you can see in the back corner there. This was a garden that I was a part of their build from the ground ground up. It was a massive undertaking. It was the coolest project I’ve ever been a part of. And we did half of it for produce and then half of it for outdoor learning classrooms. So we have the tree stumps there for the kids to sit on. But behind you’ll see those kind of like teal umbrellas. We bought benches that convert into tables.

Lauren Couchois (17:35):

So the back part of the seat folds down and it becomes like a bench or a tabletop for them. It’s really cool. And then behind that we have a pergola. We were very particular about the type of gravel we got to go under that pergola because as kids walk on it, the sound that the stones make is a sensory outlet. We have a bench there that also doubles as storage. We have little rakes in there for them to sit down. We’ve had our counselor utilize that space. She’ll take kids out there who need a break, break out the little rake, let them kind of fidget in the stones as they talk about their feelings about what’s going on. And she helps them work through their issues all while outside in that sensory garden. It is awesome. And you also don’t just have to do school gardens to be part of the school garden movement.

Lauren Couchois (18:21):

You could do educational events. Some of the most successful farm-to-school events I’ve ever been a a part of are when we invite the community in. So we’ve had invite the farmer day, we had a dairy farmer come out talk to the kids about how she utilizes her cows from milk, the products that they make. She brought milk samples for them. We did a whole bunch of milk decorations. It’s a great way to collaborate with your dairy council as well. We’ve had people bring out their animals and talk to the kids about what the animals produce for us and how we can utilize their goods. It is just the most amazing way to teach children is when they can be hands on and see the things in person. So field trips are great and a visit from the farmer is also an awesome tool to get the kids interested in school gardens.

Lauren Couchois (19:15):

Now I get a lot of questions about if I have a school garden, can I serve food from the garden in my cafeteria? So federal regulations do not prohibit the use of school garden produce. I think that they used to and that was lifted a few years ago. And some people are either still stuck in that mentality or afraid to move forward because it was a rule at one point. But federal regulations do not prevent us from using

those goods anymore. However, I have heard from some schools as I’ve started to go around our nation here, that their health department doesn’t allow it. So you want to check in with your local government, with your supervisors health departments to find out if we’re growing things, can we use it in our cafeteria? Now, typically there is a loophole because I don’t want to deter anybody away from a school garden and say, well if we can’t utilize what we’re growing in our cafeteria, then I won’t do it. Because sometimes you can find a loophole to say if you do it in a classroom as part of a taste test, it’s totally fine. And honestly there shouldn’t be any reason that you couldn’t serve the produce you’re growing from a school garden as long as you follow some safety rules that we’re going to talk about next. So when I get involved with the school and they’re going to start a school garden, I like to go over these things with them about how to safely serve produce from the school garden in your cafeteria.

Lauren Couchois (20:41):

I usually start off by saying we need to talk about training the people that are in the garden. I never allow for students to be in a garden without adult supervision because kids can be gross and they might think it’s funny to put some things in your garden when it’s not funny. They might not be aware that they’ve got a cough and a runny nose and they’re touching their face and then they’re going to go pick a tomato gross <laugh>. So training our teachers, training our people to be in the garden with the students is key number one of what to look for. I usually provide schools with a lot of guidance and literature, but truly talking with them one-on-one is going to be more effective than just emailing them some stuff. So if you’re knowledgeable ahead of time before you go in with them, I would say that that’s a really good place to start.

Lauren Couchois (21:29):

And then following good agricultural practices, usually known as gap. The main thing for gap that I like to have people be aware of is one, we need to know about our soil and water source. We need to make sure that hands are clean when we’re working in the garden and that nothing that shouldn’t be in there is allowed to be brought in. So we usually have a shed or a storage box of tools that we use that get cleaned regularly that if we’re going to harvest and then take the food from the garden into the kitchen. Our kitchen staff are the people that are trained in food safety service and regulations. Let them be the ones to handle the produce from there on out. So usually it’s almost like giving up the produce once they’ve harvested it from the garden that we are the ones that are trained, we will prepare this for you.

Lauren Couchois (22:16):

And then following up because we’re not always growing the same things in our gardens. So one way of growing, you know, tomatoes versus a way of growing pumpkins, I mean there’s a little bit of variance that goes into the safety of those items. Keeping them up off the ground so that they don’t rot so that we don’t get pests. I highly recommend organic gardening for school gardens as well. That way you just never have the extra worry of pesticides and herbicides. I don’t even like herbicides being in the vicinity of, because if kids are out there playing, they’re walking through that area, then they track it into your garden. I mean, you might as well just sprayed roundup everywhere at that point. So being in communication with your building supervisors and maintenance landscaping staff as well to say like, Hey, I know you guys got to use that.

Lauren Couchois (23:07):

Any chance you could just not spray this area, I will take care of the weeds. And they’re like, whatever we have, don’t have to do, you know, for less work, sure, don’t go in that area. Not a problem at all. But you’re going to have to keep up with weeds then. So following up and making sure that all the rules and regulations that you’ve spoken with because nobody wants to get sick from a school garden, produce like

that would be the worst. So making sure that the training that you’ve provided is still being followed and follow up with them as well.

Lauren Couchois (23:37):

And then different types of school gardens. There is never a one size fits all for a school garden. I love raised beds. Container gardening is amazing for students. Reusing your materials. I’ve seen a lot of people that just take things from around the school campus and repurpose it, repurpose it back into their garden. That’s awesome. It’s also a great way to get that art class involved of like, Hey, we’ve got this. Can you paint it up and make it pretty? ’cause I’m going to make it a pot now. With an amazing picture there in the middle from Marin County Marin County one of my like school garden, gods Jason Hall. He is amazing. And I see that picture there and I get incredibly jealous that I don’t live in a location that does a school garden like this and it’s beautiful to work at, but these places exist.

Lauren Couchois (24:28):

But you can see there he’s utilized some amazing raised beds. I think you can get stuff like that from your local feed store and then make it into a school garden. He’s really fortunate to have a greenhouse. Greenhouses are awesome because not everybody has great weather at all times, nor is it predictable. So if you have a greenhouse or if you can get a grant for a greenhouse, I love them for kids. It’s also a great way to incorporate your special education students Greenhouses typically have some kind of path material in them that makes it easier for students to walk in if they do have special needs. But also like that picture on the right there, hydroponics, I started doing that with special education classrooms because a lot of their students couldn’t go outside or had sensitivity to the sun. Indoor gardening is still school gardening.

Lauren Couchois (25:23):

It is awesome. It’s also a really fun way to teach kids about how water and light affect the plants. So don’t discount, you know, tower gardens, indoor gardening, hydroponic gardening, anything like that. And it doesn’t have to be this huge undertaking. You could have one tower and you’re still providing a school garden for your students. So big to small school gardens all count. They’re all amazing tools to teach our kids about nutritious eating, where food comes from and also how hard it is to garden. I mean, I guess I, I highly recommend organic gardening for school gardens to eliminate any kind of chemicals coming in, but it is so much harder and you know, when kids get to see and be a part of that process, it also gives them an appreciation and understanding of nature, which I mean bonus while we’re at it, right? So all different types of school gardens count for school gardening.

Lauren Couchois (26:22):

Now, one of the biggest obstacles is typically getting buy-in. I’ve had one champion in a school, but it’s a school with a thousand kids and 60 teachers and they’re the only ones that are want to doing, you only one’s wanting to do this. So getting buy-in is huge for me. The best method of getting people involved is inviting them out to either the project we’re building or an existing garden so they can see how impactful it is on their students. Here we have the community that came together. We had people from a local supermarket. I didn’t know that they had to get volunteer hours, but part of their policy for their employees is that they do this within the community. Awesome. We had like 28 people from this business come out and help support us. We’ve got one of our amazing principals there, Mark Loach.

Lauren Couchois (27:15):

This man is like outdoors not my thing so much, but he very much cares about his kids. He very much cares about his school. He came out and got to be a part of our building process and it’s a great way for the kids to also see them as just not in a suit as a principal or not just the teacher in their classroom. I don’t know if you guys have ever ran into like when you were younger, ran into your teachers in the grocery

store and it’s like, oh my gosh, you exist out in the wild, but letting your kids have a more personal interaction and relationship with you outside of just the classroom also gets buy-in from your kids to be more involved and more attentive in class. In the middle there is one of our school board members that came out and helped us.

Lauren Couchois (27:57):

I mean, what great PR for her as well as an amazing opportunity for us to get to know her better, have her be a part of our build. But there is, you know, a number of reasons why people want to come out and help. And honestly, I don’t care what your reason is as long as you’re there to help, that’s much appreciated because school gardens are an undertaking, especially if you’re doing a really big project there. But getting buy-in is just, honestly, I can’t talk about how important that is enough because it can’t just be one person. The most successful gardens I have ever seen are when the principal allows the teacher to incorporate curriculum into the garden. Which is kind of different from state to state on how that you can do that. Not everybody has the same curriculum patterns, but if you can show them that they can do that in the garden, then they’re going to be way more interested in getting out there and not call it, you know, getting away from class time.

Lauren Couchois (28:55):

Part of getting buy-in as well is sharing your story. Not everybody knows what school nutrition does, right? That’s, I mean, number one, they think that it’s like, oh, you just reheat food. No, there is so much more to it. So telling your story gets buy-in from your parents, from your community, from your own school staff sometimes about what food service is doing and what we’re doing with school gardens. If you are sharing, you know, pictures like our bok choy story we have an amazing couple of social media outlets with School Food Rocks. And I know school districts have their own as well, but if you can share those stories, the parents are going to be way more interested in helping out with school events, with helping out with your garden when they see, oh my gosh, is that my kid eating bok choy? Like, I want to be a part of that now.

Lauren Couchois (29:47):

Also it doesn’t just have to be social media. Podcasting is so popular. If you get an invite to be on a podcast that you know is a reputable podcast and they want to talk to you about what your organization is like and what you’re doing for farm to school, take that opportunity. Public speaking is not your thing. You know, I go back to that quote of speak up even if your voice shakes, because if you are not telling the story, who is and are they telling that story correctly? And are they telling your story? So you can also use this to highlight your local farms too. Let them get involved. Let them know like, Hey, if you’re going to help us out, we’re going to help people know about you. So sharing stories all around is an amazing way to get buy-in for farm to school projects and school gardens in general.

Lauren Couchois (30:40):

Now grants securing funding. A lot of people get very concerned about monetary sources for their school gardens because they don’t have the budget for it or they don’t know where to start. But it is amazing how many grants are out there from big box stores to grocery stores. The USDA typically has at least a couple of grants a year. Your own state agency might rotary clubs, local businesses, getting your universities involved. I mean, for me it seems like grant opportunities are endless, but the tricky part as I mentioned before, is the timing of it. If you are a school district or a school that doesn’t have a grants person on staff to even give you a heads up to it, I highly recommend just typing in “school garden grants”. You’ll see all the different sources there that are available to you and sign up for their newsletters.

Lauren Couchois (31:35):

That is my number one way of being informed of when a grant is coming out. I get a newsletter about it and then I can share it with my teachers. I can share it with schools that I know that want to get a start-up and schools that already have a garden as well. Not all grants are just for start-ups. A lot of them are for the continuation of the beautification of, you know, things like that are a great way for you to get a grant for your school garden project. But they do vary by region and by state. So be on the lookout for those. But also just seeking donations. I mean, the best way to get people to understand what you’re doing is to go visit them in person. You can definitely write a letter asking for support, but when I show up in my uniform representing my school district and saying, Hey, your local school that is a half a mile down the road here, starting a school garden, we really want to get kids involved about eating healthier, trying more fruits and vegetables.

Lauren Couchois (32:33):

And we have found that school gardens are the way to do it, but we need your help. They are way more invested than a potential email that they never open or delete. So get out there and see what is available to you because sometimes people are looking for donations. One, they want to help their community, but also tax write offs. Like we can’t discredit that, right? So getting out there and see who in your community is looking to help you out is is going to be huge for you. They’re usually like the unknown source for help. Now, local procurement along with school gardens is all about farm-to-school. So there’s all these different types of gardens you can do that don’t have to be produce gardens, but farm-to-school isn’t just about what you can grow on campus. It’s about working with your local farmers.

Lauren Couchois (33:24):

Honestly, that’s not always easy. I had this amazing idea, I thought anyways and sent out all this, you know, request for help to farmers. I reached out to my local extension agency. I reached out to the state AG department, to the state education department. We never heard back from a farmer. They are out in the field, they are busy. They, they might not even know that K-12 could be an awesome client for them. They’re very hard to get in touch with. But once you are in touch with them and they realize like, oh, you guys are, you know, serving thousands of kids a day, that’s a great customer source for me. They want to be involved. If you can’t get in touch directly with a farmer, your distributor usually can. They have relationships with farms, with farmers in their area. And they can help you secure local funding or sorry, local sourcing.

Lauren Couchois (34:19):

Some farms don’t even think about us because they’re like, I can’t supply your needs. You know, you are serving thousands of kids a day and I can’t do that year round. That’s not a problem. I love supporting the local farm. I’ve been fortunate to work in awesome counties that are very large and we might have a farm who can work for, you know, four schools near their area, but the other 84 schools aren’t going to get that product. To me, that is okay. Those four schools are going to benefit. The farm is going to benefit and those four schools are more likely to be a part of that community than, you know, 20 schools that are over 40 miles away. So don’t discredit a farm just because they’re small and honestly hope or help to have the farmer understand that they shouldn’t discredit themselves either. And consider your seasonal changes.

Lauren Couchois (35:13):

Working with farmers to say, I have this four week cycle menu. We have these subcategories of vegetables that we have to serve, right? We know that we know we’re going to be serving from the red orange category, dark green starch, legume and other. We know we’re going to be doing that every single week. So helping them understand like, I’m going to have green beans every Friday. How long and how many could you provide to us? Having that conversation with them can also help them set up their fields to start growing more green beans to meet your needs. So sometimes they’re doing, you know, crop

rotation. They’re, they’re the ones that are experts in that. I let them handle all of that, but I talk to them about what I need and then they work out how to get that supply going better for us. But also, you know, if it’s not something that they can’t do all the time, they are amazing to utilize for your special events and your limited time offers.

Lauren Couchois (36:11):

So you could always do something where you’re going to have, you know, field day is a big thing that kids do and maybe you have a farm in the area that can supply your corn for that event even better. Maybe they can’t do it all year, that’s okay. But they can for this event, highlight them. Let that school know, let that community know like, hey, at our field day today, we also have Smith Farms from up the road serving your corn and talk about them. So supporting your local farmers is so important. As we know for the local economy the food is typically more nutritious because it didn’t travel as far and also and more environmentally friendly because it didn’t travel as far. So working with your local farms again, once you are in touch with them, you’re usually pretty good to go. But it is so much about communication, helping them understand what you need and talking with them about what they can do for you and vice versa.

Lauren Couchois (37:13):

And with all of that said, it’s just never forget the why. My big why is that kids are more likely to eat these foods. I like having kids even play with their foods. So we did a cucumber harvest at another school there as I picked one off, I just offhandedly went hello and handed it to the kid like it was a telephone. And then that got all of their imaginations just going. They were like, look at my cucumber, smile. Look at my cucumber mustache, look at my rainbow. I was like, you guys, yeah, live it up. They were so into the shape of these cucumbers, like things I didn’t even think about having them do with that. We’ve done watermelon harvest where we’re like, guess the weight of the watermelon? Who’s strong enough to hold the watermelon? You know, and then kids really get out of hand sometimes, so you gotta kind of watch that.

Lauren Couchois (38:02):

Beause They’re like, look what I can do one handed and then there goes your watermelon. So keep that under control. But getting them involved in the food is just again, it’s going to make them more likely to eat it. You might notice that the little girl in the cucumber picture pink shorts is the same little girl in the zucchini picture. That’s because that’s my kid. So she was my picky ear for her little brother. You put something in front of him, he is like, thank you. And just ate it. And she was like, Hmm, what is it? Oh and it’s green. It’s like great having her out in the garden with me. I mean it’s changed the way she eats. This is zucchini. And she was like what are we going to do with this? I was like, well one, we left it on the vine a little too long, so we’re going to make zucchini bread.

Lauren Couchois (38:47):

Her instant reaction was gross, I’m not eating that. And I was like girl. Do you like carrot cake? Yeah, I like carrot cake. Do you like pumpkin bread? Yeah, I like pumpkin bread. It’s like those are two vegetables that are into your breads. Same thing here. She’s like, oh, I never thought about that before. So getting them to eat food in different ways too. The garden is just awesome for that. And then our little guy there with lettuce never had a salad in his life but went to go cut off that lettuce. He gathered it all together and he said, oh, it’s like a bunch of flowers. And we were like, like a bouquet. Yeah, that’s cool. He ate salad that day. If you’ve never been a part of that process where you have a kid that takes something from seed and watches it grow, watches it produce fruit and then they get to eat that fruit.

Lauren Couchois (39:37):

I mean these kids, I, I’m saying these kids like, I don’t feel this way as well. It’s like you’re a magician, you’re like, oh my gosh, look what I’ve done here. It is so fun to watch the kids be a part of this and then it is just even like cherry on top to watch them eat it. So school gardens, they’re not easy, but they are awesome. They are a great way to get kids to eat foods that they may have never tried otherwise. So I highly obviously highly recommend school gardens and then just don’t forget, it doesn’t have to be anything like this. It could also be where we’ve got a walking path and we’re teaching kids about nature. It could be about working with your local farmer and procuring more goods that are in your area. It could be about highlighting what we’re doing in the community. There’s so many aspects to farm-to-school that, you know, there’s probably more I haven’t even mentioned today that somebody out there is doing that is totally awesome and it’s just endless with school garden. So this is why I highly recommend getting started, even if it’s scary to get started. Just get started Once you’re going, you’ll be good.

Laura Thompson (40:49):

I love it. Lauren, thank you so much for all of this insight, all of this expertise that you’ve been sharing today. This has been absolutely fantastic and I love how you highlighted it doesn’t have to be a big huge thing. Okay. Like you mentioned at the beginning you had the, the two five gallon tubs and that produced a whole bunch of tomatoes that were able to go in the salads because there are times when you’re starting something that if you look at the big picture, it can get overwhelming. And so you would want to know how can I start? And I know that was, those were some of the questions that we got as people were registering was how do I start? And so I love that you showed some of the small chunks that people can take as they get started.

Laura Thompson (41:27):

So a couple of items just as we are opening it up to your questions, we’re going to go through some of the questions that have been submitted prior to the webinar. But please put in any questions that you have in here and we can tackle them. But I did want to highlight something that we’ve done here at Health-e Pro. If you use Health-e Pro, we have created some new sidebar graphics that you can use that highlight farm- to-school. So you can go into the sidebars folder, you can find some new graphics and you’ve got some that are already built. And this is for everybody, whether you use Health-e Pro or not. We’ve also created a Canva template of graphics that you can, like if you’re working with a rancher or a farmer or a local company and you want to be able to create a logo that you can use to promote your farm-to-school program, we’re going to drop either into the chat or definitely into the the email that we send out tomorrow with the recording, a link to a Canva template that we’ve created that you can then customize that image to help promote your program.

Laura Thompson (42:22):

We want to be able to help you promote the Farm-to-School program that you are doing in your organization. So know that that will be coming. Okay, so for a few questions that we have coming through or that have been submitted already. So one is this, it’s, we are successfully doing farm-to- cafeteria and we need to bring a value of farm-to-school curriculum to the classroom. How would you recommend doing that?

Lauren Couchois (42:48):

Yeah, that’s, that’s a great question. And it honestly depends where you’re at. So I’m located in South Carolina. We’re really fortunate our state department has put together a farm-to-school curriculum. That is awesome. So if you happen to be in South Carolina, utilize that. You might have the same thing in your state and I don’t even know about it if you don’t. I’ve when I was in Florida, I worked directly with my teachers. So your STEM/STEAM teachers are usually the people that are the most excited about these things. What I’ve done in the past is I’ve sat down with them and I’ve said, tell me about what you’re

teaching in the classroom and let me think about how I could incorporate it into a school garden. And then we kind of talk about, you know, these different standards that it meets. And I’m like, okay, great.

Lauren Couchois (43:37):

So for instance I I want to say here in South Carolina it’s third grade that does the lifecycle. I mean, what better place to learn about the lifecycle than a school garden? So I’ll talk with them about like, hey, if you start with the seed and you show the kid the seed and then you go to, you know, the next week when it’s starting to sprout and then so on and so forth, how could you incorporate that in your lesson about the lifecycle? And it’s almost always this kind of back and forth conversation that it, you know, kind of sparks some imagination in them to go. I didn’t even think about utilizing the school garden for that. I’ve had English teachers that are in their poetry section and they’ve come out to the school garden and their assignment for the day was, you have to write a poem.

Lauren Couchois (44:21):

Well, we’re going to go out into the school garden and we’re going to write a poem about what we see out there. Math math is amazing for the school garden. It’s like endless. I usually like to talk about it in the way of perimeters. I’ve had third graders, first graders come out there and learn about rulers and measurements and third grade was doing perimeters. And so we’ve gone out and measured our boxes. I’ve even had some math teachers come out and we talk about like, hey, this is kindergarten math. They’re just starting to talk about addition. I’m like, wonderful. Let’s go count how many tomatoes are on this plant? Let’s go count the different types of plants we’re growing. Science of course is completely unlimited in the school garden. There’s just so many ways to incorporate what they’re doing in the classroom into the garden.

Lauren Couchois (45:09):

And I think that’s the message that you’ve gotta get across to them because when people hear about we’re building a garden or you have a school garden, I’ve heard teachers tell me, you know, I think this is cool, but it’s just another thing that you’ve added to my list. And I’m like, oh, I hope not because I hope it’s something you can take off of your list. You know, we don’t have to do X, Y, Z in the classroom and we’re going to put on, you know, on the smart board or something like that. Get your kids outside, get them in a new environment, get their imaginations going, but you are still conducting class is awesome. So I think getting them to understand that it isn’t an addition to their work, it’s a way to incorporate what they’re already doing outside. And if it’s very much that you’re looking for curriculum based answers, I don’t even know the curriculum codes, things like that, that’s when you need to speak with your teachers and then just talk about how you guys could work together and the different things that are out there that they could do.

Laura Thompson (46:05):
Awesome. We just had a question come through that maybe we’ll help you expand on this even a little bit

more. Ana asked, I am the nutrition department not a teacher. How do I get the kids involved and can I

Lauren Couchois (46:19):

I, I don’t know if you are in food and nutrition, but you want to get the kids involved at a school. I don’t know if you’re located at a school or at a district office or something like that, that’s when you need to go speak with the principal. Talk to them about, hey, we have this awesome resource available to your kids. Again, this is a nice place for social media can come in because you’re going to highlight the school and you can even tell them like, you’ve got a great idea here or you’ve got a great resource here and make it about their great idea and then get to promote it to the public that way. Usually principals are like, yeah, I want to do that. I want the parents to know what an awesome job we’re doing in our schools. But if it’s

that you’re more like, I don’t have any interaction directly with the students or control of a classroom, the principal is the one for sure that should be able to allow or not allow that collaboration.

Laura Thompson (47:11):

Awesome, thank you. Here’s a great question that just came through from Jamie. What plans do you suggest to start off with that steers clear for most allergies? I work with ECE school meal operations and I’m concerned about allergies and exposure in the garden setting.

Lauren Couchois (47:27):

That’s a great question. Fruit is a fun one. You know, again, that’s kind of a seasonal thing, so it depends where you are. But sometimes doing like berry bushes is a good one. It depends on the allergies that you’re working with for sure. And if you’re thinking more like environmental allergies or bees or something like that, that is a talk that I have with our kids when we get into the garden, like there’s going to be bees here. If anybody is allergic and you don’t want to be around the bees, that’s fine. You’re going to go to this spot and this is the activity you’re going to do. But if it’s more like you’re talking about food allergies, you know, sticking away from the top nine for sure. Tomatoes are great though because they grow quickly and it’s a fun one where kids can see the butt of it, they can see the flour, then like the start of the tomato.

Lauren Couchois (48:13):

Then as it gets bigger, it’s a fun one too because they see it go from green to red or yellow or orange, whatever kind of tomato you’re growing. And also watermelons are fun. I haven’t met a kid that doesn’t like watermelon and that’s one that grows much quicker than I thought. So if you get it in and you start that like right before school starts, everybody’s probably starting school sometime in August, September. If you get that in and start the vine, kids don’t really care. They’re like, oh, it’s a plant. But if you get it to where it’s the flowers start to show up, they see the watermelon start to grow and then in like three weeks you’re going to have a watermelon for them, that’s a fun one for them to see. So I highly recommend things that don’t need a lot of upkeep and grow quickly.

Laura Thompson (48:57):

Awesome. Thank you. Here’s another one. I know you touched on it a little bit throughout the presentation, but maybe you could dive in a little bit more deeply as well. Where do you get local fundings to do farm to school? Can this be applied to the early care setting space?

Lauren Couchois (49:14):

I love the early care setting space. Yes. This, the earlier we get them, the more likely you are to be successful with them. So local funding, it just depends where you are. It depends what’s available to you. Again, going out to your local businesses and meeting with somebody face to face, I have found to be way more effective than emailing or writing them. If you do email or write them to, it should be noted. You know, AI is kind of awesome. I’m not saying that you put into one of those AI apps and you know, here’s what I want to do now write it for me. But it is also a good place just to get the crux of your message probably worded in a way that I’m not as eloquent as saying. And then AI creates this awesome message for me and I’m like, oh, okay.

Lauren Couchois (49:59):

I like this piece, I like this piece. I don’t want to use that. You know, it doesn’t sound like my language, but it can help you get going with how to write a letter like that to people because it’s kind of weird asking for money and clearly you don’t want to be like, Hey, gimme some money, but hey, we’ve got this

amazing project that we think you would be a great community support for. Is there anything you’d be willing to do to help out our school? You know, is a great way of kind of rewording that. It just depends who’s in your area that is looking to do local donations. And again, it doesn’t have to be money. It could be supplies. It could be that the season’s about to end and your garden store is left with all this soil left over. You know, one are could they donate it to you or two, could they give it to you at a really awesome cost? Is another great way to get local funding that might still be a cost to you, but you’re getting it like, you know, so much cheaper than you could if you ordered it from somewhere else.

Laura Thompson (50:55):

Excellent insight. Thank you. A quick segue really quickly. If you are looking for that custom sidebar template in Canva, that link is now in the chat as well as the link to the professional development credit for this webinar as well. So if you’re looking for either of those, know that those are both in the chat, you can check out and click on those. Another question came through of if I am looking for some help in my district, how can I reach you?

Lauren Couchois (51:24):
I love helping. You can reach me. My email, I think, I hope we have it at the end here.

Lauren Couchois (51:33):

At the beginning it’s pretty straightforward. So I’m a consultant for School Food Rocks. We are an amazing company that truly our mission is to help make school meals better across the nation. For me, I love talking to people about farm to school and food quality and presentation. I would be more than happy to help you. My email is Lauren, L-A-U-R-E-N, at School Food Rocks.com. You can also find School Food Rocks on social media outlets like Instagram and Facebook. And we also have a website that you could visit and get more information on how to contact us because it’s not just me. My awesome, awesome boss Joe Urban is also on there and happy to help. And we’re, our team is expanding for even more culinary expertise, so please reach out to us if you guys would like help, because it’s just truly my favorite thing to do.

Laura Thompson (52:26):

Incredible. We love, love the folks at School Food Rocks. Absolutely. All right. We also had a couple questions coming through about grant writing. And one specifically was I would like to learn how to draft effective requests for donations of materials and supplies.

Lauren Couchois (52:44):

Great question. Grant writing can be daunting for sure. The best advice I have when it comes to grant writing is that read your grant carefully, because typically those things are very detailed oriented. So that doesn’t mean you, you need to be wordy or anything like that, but it does mean don’t miss out on the little details that they want to know about. So as you’re looking at a grant or a request for proposal or something like that and you have to submit a grant in, I, I think that, you know, everybody is human and it doesn’t matter who your grant is for, so, or who your grant or where your grant is coming from, because sometimes people get a little intimidated when it’s A USDA grant versus a local community grant or it’s a Walmart grant versus your local store. It doesn’t matter. They’re all looking to help out in the community, but they might have very specific language that you need to answer.

Lauren Couchois (53:42):

So as you’re going through writing grants, make sure that you look for dates that they want to know about. Be specific in the funding that you’re requesting and why. Show what you would like to purchase, how

much those items are, and then make sure that you look at the purpose of the grant and you explain how what you are doing fits that grant. So sometimes, particularly with farm to school, it’ll be, I’ve seen grants that are how do you expect your, or what’s your project going to do for local procurement? I’ve seen ones that are like, what’s your project going to do that helps teachers or teach kids about farming? Those are very two different topics within the farm to school realm. So make sure that if you are putting forward a, a grant proposal for a project, that it is answering what the grant is for.

Lauren Couchois (54:31):

I hope I’m saying all of that right. And clearly I feel like I’m, I’m not, but just stay on topic of what the grant is asking. Make sure that you follow their details of what they want. Sometimes two less is more. So usually they’ll want a narrative of what’s your project and what is it good for? Go back to what is the grant trying to do. So show how, you know this is, we’re putting this forward because this school doesn’t have a school garden yet. I would love to ke teach the kids about nutrition education and get them involved in the growing process as the grant states that we’re going to do more for nutrition education, things like that. I know that people that are reviewing grants are looking that the details aren’t answered and that it matches what the grant is actually for.

Laura Thompson (55:18):

Awesome. Does that help? I think that’s a super helpful answer and I wanted to add to that. Just sometimes I know it can be daunting if you’re not used to writing a lot that all of a sudden you’re asked to, to write, you know, a grant request or grant proposal and it might be helpful to take what the question is and take some of the bullet points like you were mentioning now, and put them into ChatGPT. That might be intimidating for some people, but it’s also kind of helpful if you’re not sure where to start to just put, put what you have so far in there and see what it helps spit out of like, I’m trying to write this proposal for this grant. These are the ideas I have. How, how can I make it sound good? And so that might be helpful for those that aren’t used to maybe writing every day paragraphs and paragraphs or pages and pages every day. So that might be a, a way to get started as well.

Lauren Couchois (56:05): Absolutely. Great point.

Laura Thompson (56:09):

Another question here, and I thought this one was really good because my guess is this is pretty representative of a lot of questions people are having is I’m having trouble finding farms to work with. And for their example, we’re on the coast of Oregon. If you’re in a specific place and you’re not sure where to start, how do you go finding farms or ranches or different organizations or groups to work with?

Lauren Couchois (56:29):

Yeah, that is a great question. And I know next to nothing about the coast of Oregon <laugh>, so I’m going to answer this as best as I know for the places I’ve worked. Usually your local universities have some kind of AG program in there. They’re really good to get in touch with to try to find local farms. Sometimes we’ll even do the work for you if you say, Hey, I’m looking for a local procurement of you know, beans. They’re the ones that can say, oh, this farm has this there, let me reach out to that farmer. But the other thing that I didn’t get to mention is that like when I think of Oregon and especially the coast, you guys, this might not be school nutrition related at all, but I know you guys do have an amazing source of seaweed out there. And algae.

Lauren Couchois (57:13):

If you have local farms that are not looking for just fruit and vegetables or don’t just grow those things, look outside of that too because you might have a local farm that is going to be an amazing dairy supplier or beef supplier or fish supplier. You know, it doesn’t just have to be fruits and vegetables. But if that is what you are looking for, your distributor, I have found to be awesome resources for farms that they already are working with. And sometimes too, people in your community. I’ve had a lot of instances where it’s a generational thing and somebody’s working for us in our kitchen and they’re a fourth generation farmer. And I’m like, oh wait a second. Do you know, because even if they don’t have a farm still their family has been tied in closely to the farming community for generations. And then they might be a good resource for you too, of who to get in touch with. So local universities, colleges, extension agencies, if you’re lucky enough to have a state either Department of Education or Department of AG that has a farm to school resource for you, those are the ones that are typically most knowledgeable for your area for who to put you in touch with. But don’t discredit those people that know people because That’s just typically word of mouth is the best source you can ever find.

Laura Thompson (58:32):

That is fantastic. Thank you so much. Thank you Lauren, for presenting this today. I thought this was absolutely fantastic and it was so great to hear all the different insights and ideas. I know that as we were getting questions coming through, that’s what people were asking about. Like, how do I get started? This is new to me. I haven’t done this before. And I think this is a lot of really actionable ideas and advice that people can use. So thank you so much Lauren, and thank you everybody for attending today and for asking your questions so that we can get this conversation going. We appreciate you coming today and we look forward to seeing you again soon. Thank you very much.

Lauren Couchois (59:04): Thank you.