Speed-Scratch, School Farmers Markets, and Farm to School Magic: a Conversation with Lynne Shore

What do farm-fresh veggies, kid-run farmers markets, and a runaway pig have in common? They're all part of the magic Lynne Shore brings to her school meals! Tune in “live” from the Oregon School Nutrition Conference for a fun, feel-good journey into farm to school awesomeness — where students shop, farmers cheer, and pancakes steal the show!

Transcript

transcript

00:00:05 Michelle

Welcome to the farm to school podcast, where you and your stories of how youth thrive and farmers prosper when we grow, cook, and eat delicious, nutritious, healthy meals in schools.. and we are farm to school specialists Michelle Markesteyn. 

00:00:26 Rick

And I'm Rick Sherman,  

00:00:27 Michelle

and we are so thrilled. We are actually airing live from the Oregon School Nutrition Association Conference.

00:00:26 Rick

We are in downtown Salem OR at a big Convention Center.  I don't know how many hundreds of people are here. We are we are with one of our dear friends, Lynn Shore, who is the Oregon School Nutrition Association President.

00:00:42 Michelle

Famous!

00:00:43 Lynne Shore

You're welcome. Hi.

00:00:46 Rick

So can you tell the people that aren't from Oregon that listen to this,  I'm sure other states where there's a National School Nutrition association, but most states have a gathering like this too, right? So what is this all about?

00:01:02 Lynne Shore

Out most states do have a state conference, and today we are learning all different things about child nutrition of CACFP, National School lunch programs. A lot of people are able to get the professional standard trainings in today.  And then the fun part is the food and equipment show.

00:01:18 Rick

Yeah, we've actually, Michelle and I were reminiscing.  We’ve been here for like 12 years and we have a farm to school booth here, and we're kind of commenting like family schools kind of taken over this. I mean, we're a big presence here. I mean we've had four breakout sessions, we have this and this is what we hear is the most famous part, have a food show and people know like in one part of the building, there's lots of equipment, lots of processed food. But on this wing it's all or it's grown and processed local food on this wing and people, it's love that it's all local. And people love it.

00:02:00 Lynne Shore

For sure. Yeah, we have a whole section just for fun to school items and local items and a lot of them are, like you said, items that… This after us for that are unprocessed, not meaning… Not meaning processed like people think, but more like pre-cut. Yeah and minimally processed. Yeah. So, so it makes it easier for our cooks to speed-scratch, cook, you know, takes a little bit of time.

00:02:31 Rick

That's a new one.

00:02:31 Michelle

I hadn't heard that term.

00:02:33 Rick

Can we copyright that?

00:02:35 Michelle

Trademark!

00:02:36 Lynne Shore

Yes. Speed-scratch is really nice because for instance, sometimes we don't want raw beef in our kitchens in our refrigerators because of sanitation and training. So exactly so some of our foods will be.. We cooked like hamburger crumbles and then we're able to take those hamburger crumbles and put them with some other items to make things like chili famous Sloppy Joes, things like that.

00:03:04 Michelle

That's amazing. And people can hear the din in the background, but how would you describe this? It's hard to get your head around who's actually here at school nutrition trade show.

00:03:17 Lynne Shore

Oh, it's so amazing because we have people that are registered dieticians. We have food service directors.  We have frontline employees. We have warehousemen when a couple warehousemen yesterday took a ServSafe class. There are new hires, to make sure they got that under their belt. We have a really big variety of people that are in school nutrition industry.

00:03:38 Rick

They might not know what servesafe is,  that is a big thing in our industry. You wanna say what that is?

00:03:43 Lynne Shore

It's a big it's a sanitation class and test. It goes a little bit farther than a food handlers’ card, which you can get online.

00:03:48 Rick

Yes.

00:03:50 Lynne Shore

It’s real intense. You need to study for a couple weeks. They have a class review and a big quiz, but that really let's everyone know that the people that are there that have that certificate. Know what they're keeping the kitchens clean, the food clean and healthy and safe for everyone to eat.

00:04:06 Rick

And for you parents out there that have kids going to school, that's an industry standard around the country that it's a big deal. I've taken that test so many times. and I always get 99/100, just saying. I’ve never had to retake... She just rolled her eyes. You can't see that she did, but I've taken it so many times over the years. Yeah, I still do. I still take it just because.

00:04:28 Lynne Shore

You really need to know all of the biological names for everything.

00:04:33 Rick

Clostridium perfringens! 

00:04:36 Lynne Shore

There you go. 

00:04:37 Rick

Baccilus cocci! 

00:04:38 Michelle

We’ll have that in the show notes.

00:04:40 Rick

No, we won't. We'll talk about servesafe though, we'll have that in the show notes.

00:04:43 Michelle

Well, and I mean, I think the thing too is like here we are in the farm to school showcase at the school nutrition and I'm looking at cameras, country mills. They grow wheat in the Willamette Valley and they grind the grain and it's used in flour and other baked goods schools would serve. And specifically you do what school district?

00:05:09 Rick

Also, not only a president of OSNA in Oregon, but you also have a day job.

00:05:16 Lynne Shore

Job I am the food service director for Willamina School District.

00:05:18 Rick

Willamina. Tell us where that is. Paint a picture of what it looks like?

00:05:22 Michelle

Where is that, Willamina?

00:05:24 Lynne Shore

Williamina is in the Willamette valley and we are halfway between Salem and the beach.

00:05:30 Rick

Yeah. On the way to the beach!

00:05:30 Lynne Shore

The way to it. a beautiful, beautiful area.

00:05:33 Rick

And I go by there all the time because there's a nice dirt bike riding area there.

00:05:36 Michelle

So it's a, it's a booming urban area, right?

00:05:40 Lynne Shore

He's laughing a few “booms” because we do have some mills there and sometimes they get a little loud.

00:05:45 Rick

OK, matter of fact, there's a famous TV show that's filmed there of famous reality show. What's that called?  Axe men, the logger show. They are a bunch of loggers and one of the groups of people was at Willamina. Yeah.

00:06:01 Michelle

I didn't know that.

00:06:02 Lynne Shore

Neither did I actually, but it's a relatively small world. It’s very a small world logging community.

00:06:12 Rick

Yeah, but, and you have invited me out to your school before, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Lynn not only to paint a picture about Oregon School Nutrition Association.

But actually she does a promotion at her school that blows me away. And can you tell me about that?

00:06:29 Lynne Shore

All right, and Speaking of greens over here. When we had a farmers’ market, we have a few farmers markets for our students at our schools.  We invite all of the farmers that are around there are several around which is which is.. And what we get to do is we set it up all in a covered area. This is Oregon. A little bit of rain so we plan… So we make sure that we have it under our covered area. All the farmers get to set up their own booths just like a regular farmers market where they put their signs up and everything. But these farmers get to sell to the kids.

00:07:07 Michelle

What?

00:07:07 Lynne Shore

The kids get to take all of the food home to their families and share.

00:07:11 Rick

They had, like food bucks, little things printed out, right?

00:07:15 Lynne Shore

We get all of the kids tokens, we have the $10 and pretend quarters so the kids practice budgeting, making change, they all have a certain amount. All have the same amount so $12.00 or such? And then they give those to the farmers to pay for the food. They figure out how much it's going to cost what I can buy for this. And the kids are so.. They always get things for their families, their uncles, their it's. It's fantastic to see the kids. 

00:07:43 Rick

Starts!

00:07:47 Lynne Shore

Yes. We've had three of them, so. We've had two in the spring and one in the fall. So Fall is more of a harvest, OK.  But the fall and in the springtime, we do a lot of starts. So the kids can go home and grow their own, and then what we do is the tokens that the farmers get, they get paid off in cash. So the farmers and you know, I suspect they probably cut the prices about for the kids, which is wonderful on their part. But then they do get paid in cash, so they're not taking any losses.

00:08:24 Rick

And one of the things I remember is your principal at the time brought her own pet potbelly pig and I got to hold her, and she and they, they dropped her down and she ran through all the Bulls, kind of creating havoc.

00:08:39 Michelle

So those farmers at the farmers market, those are ones that grow for your school meal programs too?

00:08:39 Lynne Shore

There are a few of them that we do work that grow far, far longer program. We use them for our salad bars. And we're getting a few more coming on because they've experienced our farmers market and love the excitement that the kids are showing. And so they want to make sure that we bring that throughout the year.

00:09:04 Michelle

So it was a way to even attract farmers to the schools because it is it hard to get produce and other products into your school.

00:09:13 Lynne Shore

It is a little difficult.

We have a 

Produce wholesaler that we also use, but we like to be a little bit closer to town, we have on one of our farmers that we use is a mile away and it's so fantastic to know that the kids that this farmer that I'm talking about is across from the swimming hole. So the kids can go to the swimming hole in the summertime and look up and actually see food growing that going to eat in a few weeks.

00:09:39 Michelle

You need a sign out there out in the field that says it’s going to the school.

00:09:46 Lynne Shore

Alright, we'll do that.

00:09:47 Michelle

We're on that.

00:09:48 Rick

Another thing I want to point out, I'll leave a link in the show notes. I remember telling Lynn about this before, but if there's people out there that want to just do a student farm stand for their school garden, I have this resource called Student Farmers Handbook and it was made by Denver Urban Gardens. My buddy Andy will have a hand in that. I think over in slow food USA and I want to make that available. Like it's one of those things you don't have to recreate the wheel. Has all the money, handling sheets and everything like that. And that's a really good resource for those of you want to try to do a like a light version rather than a big giant farmer's market, but just a farm stand for your school garden. So I want to make that available.

00:10:30 Lynne Shore

Yeah. And I wanted to talk about some of the other farmers and stuff that we have at our school and some of the activities that we've done, especially at the farmers market during that time. Also have an activity book that we send out with kids and that that way they learn about growing from the growing their starts taking of them. We had the dairy Princess ambassador bring her calf. She was very popular.

00:10:51 Rick

I remember that, yeah. Kind of like a little petting zoo you have there.

00:10:57 Lynne Shore

Exactly besides the principal’s pig that ran through everything in the world.

The way that I funded this was through the farm to school education grant. But there are so many other ways that you can do this, and one of the other school districts in our area, she came and observed our farmers market and she decided she went to her school. And PTSO helped kick in some money so that they were able to afford to do it as well, and that's in Sherwood OR.

00:11:25 Michelle

Parent, teacher, student organizations at PTSO. 

00:11:29 Lynne Shore

I believe so. OK, the PTA. They've changed their names a little bit, PTA for the first old fashioned.

00:11:39 Michelle

Well, you mentioned.. What else do you do with wheat with the students?

00:11:44 Lynne Shore

One of the farmers at our farmers market brought in his wheat and he milled it right in front of the kids. The kids were able to buy that wheat and they we supply supplied recipes. They were able to buy that, take it home and prepare food for their families. Also did a live demonstration of pancakes, one of our former students who's chef came in and made pancakes with that wheat right in front of the kids. Right when it was freshly milled so that they could have a few free samples of it. Never had that taste like, it was amazing.

00:12:16 Michelle

It's a great example.

00:12:17 Lynne Shore

It's a little gritty, but beautiful, and I think the kids all just fell in love with pancakes. I went home and made pancakes for everybody. Breakfast for dinner.

00:12:26 Michelle

Breakfast for dinner is a regular thing at our house. Do you get feedback from parents from like these kids have brought home?

00:12:37 Lynne Shore

We do have a really great communications guy. He posts a lot of stuff on our Facebook page and after he posted that, we had so many comments about parents saying this is their favorite activity of the year and Little Susie brought home a plant for Uncle Joe and she can't wait to give it to him.

00:12:55 Michelle

It's really fantastic.

00:12:56 Lynne Shore

The parents are very positive about it. One of our families had to leave for the weekend and they were kind of upset that they were going to miss that. I ask for early access, so we make sure that they got… It's a really important big, big deal for these kids to be able to participate of the side things that are educational as well.

00:13:15 Michelle

It really does connect the cafeteria, classroom and community, and your school district is just doing that amazingly.

00:13:25 Lynne Shore

It's a fantastic program.

And like, It's my baby.

00:13:30 Rick

Thank you so much. Thank you.

00:13:32 Michelle

And then I just want to give you a really sincere thank you because it's so hard to be a school nutrition service director and here you are doing that in all the leadership for our state in SNA.

00:13:44 Michelle

Thank you so much.

00:13:45 Lynne Shore

Thank you.

00:13:45 Lynne Shore

It's a labor of love for sure.

00:13:47 Rick

Thanks to say goodbye to everyone.

00:13:50 Lynne Shore

Bye bye guys.

00:14:00 Rick

Hey, thank you for listening today.

00:14:02 Rick

The farm to school podcast was written, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn with production support from LeAnn Locher of Oregon State University. This podcast was made possible by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. The content and ideas in the farm to school podcast is not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education, and the United States Department of Agriculture.  The USDA, ODA and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers. Do you want to learn more about farm to school? Check out other episodes, show notes, contact information and much more by searching farm to school podcast, OSU. We would love to hear from you. Stop by that website that I just mentioned and say hello and give us an idea for the future podcast. Thank you, everybody. And we'll see you next time.