First Foods, Lasting Legacy: Indigenous Foodways at Chemawa Indian School

At the Chemawa Indian School, food is more than nourishment—it's culture, tradition, and connection. Meet the Staff reviving First Foods through student-driven menus, community cooking, and a deep respect for Indigenous knowledge.

Transcript

First Foods, Lasting Legacy:  Indigenous Foodways at Chemawa Indian School

At the Chemawa Indian School, food is more than nourishment—it's culture, tradition, and connection. Meet the Staff reviving First Foods through student-driven menus, community cooking, and a deep respect for Indigenous knowledge.

00:00:05 Michelle

Welcome to the farm to school podcast where you will hear stories of how youth thrive when farmers prosper. When we learn how to grow, cook, and eat delicious, nutritious local foods in schools across the country…

00:00:16 Rick

..and the whole wide world. Hey everybody, we're your hosts,  I'm Rick Sherman.

00:00:19 Michelle

and I'm Michelle Markesteyn

00:00:21 Rick

So today we have some special guests in our studio, as we always do, but this time we're let me give you a little background. I I met these people on a tour of the Chemawa Indian School in Salem OR Chemawa is operated by the Bureau of Indian Education and has a long history. They were established in the 1870s and is the longest continually ran boarding school for native students in the US and is one of four off reservation boarding schools for native students currently, so the students are there not only from all over Oregon, but all over the western parts of the United States? So anyway, the people I met are Casey Kavanaugh and Shane Mack. Can you say your last name.

00:01:14 Shayn Mackaravitz

Mackaravitz 

00:01:15 Rick

Mackaravitz. 

00:01:19 Rick

Thank you for that. So welcome to the program.

00:01:22 Casey Cavanaugh

Thank you. Thank you so much for having us.

00:01:24 Rick

Welcome. So, first of all, wanted to talk about Casey, you have a title that is a mile long and what is it you do? Can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and the role you play?

00:01:36 Casey Cavanaugh

Sure. Yeah. I am the national nutrition consultant for Indian Affairs, which is located in the Department of Interior. So that means that I work with both the Bureau of Indian Affairs, who overseas about 80 to 90 detention centers and jails throughout the US and then the Bureau of Indian Education who overseas 183 schools in 23 States and two post-secondary institutions, so it is pretty busy. However, my focus is mainly on about four or five schools and then about four or five detention centers, as that's been the focus of our indigenous Food Hub initiative, which is to try to increase more indigenous food that are offered to both the inmates and the students at these facilities to increase nutrition education around these foods and also to help cooks kind of figure out how to add these foods to their meals and their menus. And also I coordinate a Cooks Council which has been really useful and very profound in this work as it helps our cooks to consult with each other on recipe on menu ideas and student feedback and acceptability of these foods.

00:02:42 Rick

So that's like 3 episodes worth right there, all the stuff she does, and we're going to circle back about the First Foods initiative. We want to talk about that, but we're talking about you're supporting cooks. And so we have a chef with us today.  Shayn. So what is your official title and role at Chemawa?

00:03:01 Shayn Mackaravitz

I am the food service manager at Chemawa Indian School and I make all the menus to fall in line with the ODE, make all the production sheets, prep sheets weekly prep sheets so that staff know what needs to be prepped, how much needs to be prepped. Also, I do meet with student council, the REC coordinator, and we go through weekly activities, so all the students at the school get all their food from the kitchen, so they breakfast, yes, but they also do breakfast, lunch and dinner, cause that's a boarding school trips, educational trips to other colleges, coast trips.  Silver Creek Falls and we provide, we do barbecues, we go with them, BBQ food for them sack lunches, snacks for all their sport events and we cook like their prom dinners. And when they have dances, we cater those as.

00:03:59 Rick

Nice, nice. OK. Well, so how did you get your start doing what you're doing now, Shane?

00:04:15 Shayn Mackaravitz

Well, I started out as an intermittent food service I had some family that worked in the kitchen and they let me know they were hiring, I applied, went through the process, got hired, worked hard for two years. A full time position came open. I took that food service, worked that for about 11 years, kind of learned the in and out. So the kitchen was interested with the food because at that point in time we were serving three 5400 students, so.. It was kind of mind boggling to me seeing.. and 50-60 lbs of hamburger and a big kettle. You know, that was like a lot of lot of product. Yeah. And, you know, ask questions here and there with the cooks shadow them. I also shut down the kitchen a couple times when the cooks had leave. Shut the kitchen down. A cook's position opened up. I thought I could do it and I was confident I could do it. I applied for it.

00:05:30 Rick

When was that? How long ago?

00:05:33 Shayn Mackaravitz

Was that I would say about eight years ago, OK, eight years ago, started cooking and I fell in love with the cooking right there.

00:05:47 Rick

I've heard from my compatriots who come and do the reviews at the that you're doing a fantastic job and they have nothing but good things to say..  and I just want to talk about this school a little bit.  When I was there, I was blown away by that place. I was instantly so jealous of. I mean, I love my school. I went to my alma mater, the fighting Seahawks of Anacortes, but I wish I went to school at Chemawa. There was a lot going there when they had their because they're there 24/7. You know, that it's a boarding school. So they had, you have to keep them busy and entertained. So they had your own movie theater. You had your student center with games and pool tables, but I was so impressed that the people that ran it weren't people that you hired off the street, but it was the students in a great majority. You train them how to operate, to give them some real-life skills. So can you guys tell me about that some more?

00:06:50 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah. So we do have students who apply to work in the kitchen and a lot of the times we get them to apply through. They have a detail, it's like a chore that they have to come and help serve an hour a month and it rotates through the dorms. So once we get the kids in, we kind of explain what needs to be done, show them how to do it. And by the end of their detail, some kids like it or they work really good and we let them know, like, oh, you did a great job. You know, we do accept applications if you want to apply. And that's how we get most of our workers. They apply to make a little extra money. And then from there we talk to them on goals of something they'd like to learn in the kitchen. You know, some of them might not know how to, like, cut vegetables up for us all bar. So we paired them up with the salad prep person. Give them tools to prep out the salad bar to have a goal to cook. We pair him up with the cuckoo as he's cooking the meal. We'll explain to him what they're doing and in some cases, let them do some cooking too. So it's like a life experience.

00:08:10 Casey Cavanaugh

Yeah, I think they allow them to sort of, you know, have these opportunities that you wouldn't see at other, you know, schools that are not residential, they have a student store and the students run their own store, they sell like coffee drinks sometimes in the morning they will sell like gear, their sweaters and things like that. And then like when we tour the dorms, I think that you had seen, they said like you know they are detailed to clean their rooms like that is a requirement that they have to keep their rooms clean so they learn a lot of these life lessons there that you don't get, you know in regular school and because it's 24/7, they're there all the time. And so they know that's their community, they're building that school, they know they're going to be, you know, they work a lot with the staff and the staff really give them great opportunities and I think it builds so much independence in that kind of atmosphere where they're they have a bigger role to kind of uphold this environment and really contribute to it.

00:09:06 Rick

Well, the students we met, from my perspective, they look like they were beaming with pride. They really love the place and it and it really showed. And it just when the staff, the students and everything, it was just, it was just such a neat place.

00:09:20 Casey Cavanaugh

Yeah. And I think that comes also with the history of the school. Like you said, it's been around for a long time. So the history is a lot of those students, their parents, when they're their siblings, their aunts, their even grandparents went there, considering it's been around since 1870. By 1885 in Salem. That's a long time that it's been there and again, they're coming from all over the nation. So when I was talking with Shane just the other day, he was saying, yeah, sometimes the students will say, do you know, you know, so and so. That was my uncle. Or do you know so and so, you know, that was, you know, my relative. And so I think that also brings on that pride and, you know, a legacy that they've been going there for generations.

00:09:59 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah. So I've worked in the kitchen for 23 years, so, when our kids serve in the back, how long have you worked here, like 20-30 years or 20 years? You know, at the time and then?

00:10:10 Rick

Did you start when you were like 5?

00:10:15 Shayn Mackaravitz

But yeah, they'll be like, oh, my, my dad went here. His name, you know, and asking me. And in some cases, I do remember them students working in the kitchen or during even graduation time when they're graduating, they bring their.

00:10:30 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah. And I'll be… Oh, this is my little sister. They're coming here next year. Yeah.

00:10:35 Michelle

You had mentioned a process for getting student feedback into foods and cooks. Council indigenous food hubs. Can you tell us more about the student feedback component?

00:10:45 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yes. So during like student council meetings. Or even just when we're serving food. We talk to the kids and ask them, you know, what's your favorite food? What type of food do you have at home? And then when we also ask Student Council, they go back and get feedback from the students. I asked them what kind of foods would you guys like to see on the menu? Just anything I can get them into the kitchen to eat and then when they give me and I also let them know too, that if we don't have the recipe or if they wanted to come in and help make it, that that's an option too. Some of these meals we do during dinner time that we don't claim, so we can have the kids come in and they can help make the meal and in some cases they serve some or if we get it done before dinner, we'll give them a portion or so to take back to the dorm with them and they take part in that and then you can see it in them when they're leaving, you know, like ohh, I completed something and it's a it's a win-win for both of us. It's like a bonding experience between like the staff and the students and then giving them a piece of home as well, you know, serving something that they usually have at home.

00:12:07 Michelle

What kind of meals is that?

00:12:10 Shayn Mackaravitz

Well, we've done mutton Stew, which is like lamb, just some fried bread making fried bread. Some of the kids will be like you need to add more of this to your fry bread, you know, so we invite them into the kitchen. Like, come and show us, you know, and like, I was telling Casey we had a girl come in. But it's like ohh you need 5 handfuls of this, you know? But by the end of the process, she had made like a batch of, I believe, 144 fry bread. And it came out very well. So we wrote that recipe down.

00:12:45 Michelle

So that's what you mean 5 handfuls, meaning that's the measurement.

00:12:48 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah, the measurement, OK, ‘cause I'm like we're gonna we're gonna write this down so that we can start using it, you know? And then it's like they're tasting it before, before you mix it up and everything. And they're like more salt. You know, so…

00:13:02 Michelle

I think you would mention once elk you have.

00:13:05 Rick

Bison..

00:13:05 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah. Bison. Rainbow trout, salmon. Root vegetables, beets, carrots.

00:13:16 Rick

This is a good segue into like where I told you Casey, I'd get back to your subject of First Foods and it's been my experience when talking to tribal members around Oregon that food isn't just food, sometimes it but food can be sacred. It could be something that's taught to students that means something to them. And so when there's a lot of things being kicked around like food sovereignty and 1st foods and what does some of that mean to you? And you can just tell about your initiative? 

00:13:46 Casey Cavanaugh

Sure. First foods are the foods that were here before settlers came, so they were the foods that sustained a lot of, you know, tribes for millennial for, you know, thousands of years and 60% of our foods. And you know, our current diet in Americans diets were first foods. So we've, you know, become accustomed to them. And we don't think of. Oh… I've never had that before because we're used to eating those foods, but there's some of the lesser known first foods that I guess sellers weren't like didn't really take two or they weren't as popular. I think. So those are the foods that we're trying to really focus on and bring those back to the school skills and celebrate them so that students are excited to try them, so that could be like the elk and the bison, deer.  We're doing, we're celebrating Juniper ash right now. That's our harvest of the month. So that's kind of more of a southwestern type food and how that's prepared is that people go out, and traditionally you would have to pray, ask the tree, you know, before you take it. So there's always like, there's that sort of unknown kind of indigenous behind this when you're collecting these things and praying for that while you're collecting it and thinking of all the good thoughts of you're putting into that food while you're preparing it for your students, there's all of that sort of mindfulness that's kind of, you know, when you take a step back, that's our traditional way. So what you do is you dry out the leaves from the juniper and then you burn it and from that ash you can add that to blue corn products. So traditionally that was added to blue corn products for a lot of tribes in the southwest. This is your traditional food. So like Hopi and Navajo Pueblo, they have this often in their diets. And what science has shown is that that was a significant source of calcium. One teaspoon of juniper ash is almost equivalent to the 300 milligrams or so that you get from a cup of milk, and it also increases the bioavailability of the other nutrients in the blue corn so that your body can better absorb those nutrients. So for, you know, hundreds and thousands of years, native people had this knowledge that we didn't know contemporarily until, like scientists found. Whoa, that's interesting. This is actually a great source of calcium, but we're really trying to celebrate that with our harvest. The month this month. And, you know, have more blue corn products in the lunch. So some cooks have done more blue corn pancakes. And that is so cool when you are making blue corn mush and you add that juniper ash, it makes the mush from the blue to purple and you know, as as a dietitian and, you know, people know about nutrition. The brighter the color, the more nutrients that that food has. So it's just almost like a chemical process that you could see. And it's like, wow, that's really awesome. And you can just tell then that you have much more nutrients in that food. So again, like you said, these foods are sacred. They were they represented a majority of tribal diets for so long. I know like I'm Western Shoshone, so my people were from the Nevada territory. But show me where throughout Oregon, you know, kind of the lower part of Oregon also in Wyoming and Idaho. And the issue showing that we're kind of more connected to this area. They ate a lot of salmon and they call them Aga, which means that salmon is what they're eating. Like Aga is salmon, and the gut means what you eat. Because our tribes name each other, kind of by what they ate or their tools. But that like 70 to 80% of their diet was salmon. So you, you know, you look back at these diets and I had ancestors that lived to 100 years of age. You know, we had long lives and really healthy people before this major shift. And, you know, and diet. So we're really trying to, you know, bring these foods back, rebuild our relationship with these students and their ancestral foodways.  And actually, salmon is our harvest, the month for May. So I've started prepping the cooks at our last meeting. I said Ohh, here's some recipes that were used in school lunch because that's the other thing too. Along with our, our cooks aren't necessarily, you know, native or they may not have even, you know, growing up with these foods. So we're also trying to get our cooks accustomed to trying these foods and when we first started this, it was funny because I had some cooks that were saying I made the mutton or the lamb. But I didn't try it or like you have to try your own cooking, right? If you're giving it to the students on the line. But now they've all come full circle. They've tried bison lab. They're all, you know, very experimental with the foods right now. They're really brave. We recently celebrated sweet potatoes. That was our harvest of the month for March. And we had some cooks that were actually trying sweet potato curry bread, where they use the puree and the fried bread. And they said, WOW, we only made forty of them and they were gone in like, 5 minutes. The kids loved them. So they're really just fearless and super brave and how they are, you know, executing this project, it's really fun to see.

00:18:31 Rick

Well, that was.

So expanding on that whole system in Oregon, we have a real diversity of indigenous food, especially for First foods and just within our state like we had, whaling was a big thing on the coast and then there was foraging. I've heard, you know, like Wapato and Camas roots and things like that. And then you.. the salmon you're talking about. So that's just in Oregon. So I can only imagine for the western half of the United States, how do you honor and do can you even try to go there to try to bring everybody's cultures? Can you share that with everybody?

00:19:14 Casey Cavanaugh

Yeah, it can definitely be difficult and that's why we're trying to make sure that we do have foods in our harvest the month that represents all the tribes from all the nations. So we do have, like I said, blue corn or we do actually have blue corn coming up. And also the mutton and the juniper ashes have all kind of celebrated the tribes in the southwest salmon. We have strawberries that's going to be on for June. And then sunflowers. So those are, you know, kind of those were well known in this area wailing. I've never actually had well myself, but I would be really interested to try. I would definitely try it if I had the opportunity. But yeah, it's just, you know, the first foods are so diverse. So we actually have, I think we've come up with a tentative schedule where we can actually keep going with new foods. At least for like 3 years, but that is the barrier is the availability of these foods because like we said, like these foods are kind of like not as well known or mainstream like the 60% of the you know other the foods that are indigenous in our community.  So they can be harder to get and we are also trying to make sure we are purchasing from indigenous vendors if at all possible, like the blue corn or the Geo crash because we know they, you know they collected it the way the traditional way and things like that. But that is 1 barrier we're running into is the availability of these foods. So I hope that even if we just deliberate it as far as like the campus route if we just come up with nutrition education and we hang that in our lunch room and bring attention to it. If we're not able to get it and put it in the menu, I hope that we can at least share the information and that might in you know, increase students curiosity to try it if they had the opportunity outside of school.

00:20:50 Michelle

Is this what led you to your work on the indigenous food hubs?

00:20:55 Casey Cavanaugh

My work started at a very young age. I mean, I was interested in nutrition from growing up. I grew up with a grandma who had diabetes, so I watched her every day, check her blood sugar injected her insulin and so that piqued my curiosity. Like, what is this that she's doing?

And growing up on the reservation, I, like I said, I'm from the Duck Valley Indian Reservation. So it's Idaho-Nevada and it's borders. The Idaho, Nevada border, it kind of straddles that line. And so growing up in that reservation community, I saw a lot of elders, you know, struggling with diabetes. I saw amputations, you know, just things that you're like, wow, that's really kind of crazy when you're a kid. Seeing that and so I kind of thought, like, diabetes was a passage of life. And like I thought ohh if I can learn how to deal with this at a young age, then you know, I'm that much further ahead of the game. But you know, going through school and then also like I was an athlete in in high school and I kind of struggled with body image. So I was like a calorie counter, you know, at an early age, but going to school, I kind of thought, hey, I want to go into diabetes, you know, understanding diabetes and helping people with their weight and nutrition and kind of figuring out these things that I kind of like, you know, felt like I was kind of figuring out. We're trying to figure out.  So I ended up working for Indian Health Service and I spent a good 12 years working for Indian Health service and mostly in the Southwest. So I worked with a lot of tribes in Arizona and kind of like also circulated to tribal communities around Phoenix area. And then when COVID hit, you know, it got kind of, it was strange. They said we can't go out to the communities because we could potentially put them at risk, which was that was understandable. So I was mostly based at the hospital, but just with like, kind of that atmosphere of changing and not being able to go out in the community as much. I decided to kind of take a leap of faith and apply for something outside of dietetics. And then I became a patient advocate for two years, and that's what brought me to Oregon. I worked at the Western Oregon Service Unit, which is right next door to Chemawa. It's the clinic, serves Chemawa Indian school. And then I learned about BIE and it was never on my radar before. I don't know why, but I was like, wow, there's the school right there and a lot of people, you know, we kind of worked to get together. And that's kind of where I met Shane. So I said, hey, I wanna help with the diets and the menus. And I'm a dietician, and he probably was like, who are you? So then later in 2023? I saw that I was hiring for a national nutrition consultant and I thought, wow, OK, that's awesome. Let me apply. And they called me and they said 350 people applied and we only are interviewing 5 and Mr. interview that said, you're the last one, and we're gonna make our choice. I was like, Oh my gosh. Wow. Like this is. And it just seems like, wow, this is like a dream job. And then lo and behold, you know, I kind of stepped into that role, and it has been an amazing journey, for sure. It's almost been two years. Come August, it will be two years that I've been in this position. And overall, I've been in the government for about 16 years.

00:23:43 Rick

Wow. Well, they made a good choice, but it's so nice to see someone who loves their job and like we say, dream job, right? I've said that before too. So it's like, yeah.

00:23:47 Casey Cavanaugh

Thank you. Yes.

00:23:54 Michelle

Never work a day in my life. . Yep. Yeah, exactly. And then the food hubs themselves, is that an actual physical structure? Is that an online platform?

00:24:06 Casey Cavanaugh

It's used really loosely. Our idea of the food hub or kind of when they first came up with this idea was that they really just wanted they. They was really more of that Indigenous food hub kind of idea where they wanted to get more of these indigenous foods on the lunch menus. But along with that we are trying to increase, you know, knowledge of where is the food coming from, how are you growing the food and you know, trying to explore ideas of getting gardens onto school campuses. So out of the sites that we had last year, I want to say at least three of them tried gardening. Two were very successful. And then we also recently started a partnership with the Native American AG Fund and the tribal AG Fellowship, which is kind of their sister organization and they are supporting our BIU schools and really trying to bring more AG education to schools. We wanna get AG teachers, we wanna get FFA programs going. We would like to get more of the farm to school, you know activities. And then taking it kind of to that next level of like, you know, bison to school is kind of one of the conferences or trainings that we're working on right now with USDA that we're hoping to get some of our cooks to this summer. But that's kind of where we realized like after we kind of started this work, this is pretty much far into school and we really should be tapping into our farm to school state agencies. And getting support from the networks because you know, this is the work that we're doing. So yeah, it's been really exciting to kind of connect the schools to their state and just see all of the support that's out there for farm to school and all the opportunities and resources.

00:25:34 Rick

Well, and that's what we talk about is teaching kids where their food comes from, that there's no greater lesson than your first food saying that's what embodies that. I think it's such a such a good lesson.

00:25:48 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah. And then I'm also thinking too, you know, having the kids involved being out there, being able to plant stuff, keep the upkeep on it, having it being transferred over to the kitchen and then like I'm saying, we have kids in there prepping out. They're prepping the food that they're growing serving it. And there's that sense of pride for them too.

00:26:11 Casey Cavanaugh

Yeah. And we do have a website that we are our harvest of the month and materials are available for anyone and everyone and we wouldn't, I encourage people to go and explore it, you know print off the material, share them with your students or your class or just look at them yourselves. If you go to thebie.edu website and then you just type in harvest the month and the search or even if you type in the indigenous food hub, it will bring up the page. And then we have packets for each month, and there's one sheet on kind of like an informational sheet that has fun facts and nutrition facts about the food. There's a recipe. So we had like a venison Stew. We had Maple syrup, popcorn ball.  So you know, kind of fun recipes like that. And then the third page is a coloring sheet. Show it. So it's, you know, it could be anybody you could like adults like the color sometimes and then it also involves the little kids that they want to be involved. They can color the cute little sweet potato. Thank you for that. I'll leave a link in the show notes for that. 

00:27:03 Rick

Awesome. What's the one thing you want our listeners to know?

00:27:07 Casey Cavanaugh

I think the call to action for like what I want your listeners to know is that these foods are available and I want more people to engage in these foods and really try to… I think the more that everyone you know, engages and learns about these foods, then it makes it more available for everybody because like I said, that's a barrier, is sometimes just getting these foods. So if everyone's willing to try them and if they like them, then maybe these could be more, you know, foods, they're available that everyone can try.

00:27:33 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yes, I agree with that. A goal that I have as well is more… first foods all throughout the menu and doing the first foods the harvest of the month, you know just expands the knowledge of food for the kids as well. You know, to try new things and people live healthier.

00:27:57 Michelle

I have a big-idea question. I'm just struck by, you know, in child nutrition programs, there's a lot of rules and regulations around how to what a meal looks like. That can be very difficult to replicate at home because it's not necessarily how people eat. And I'm just curious from your perspectives like if we could rethink school meals? And the way we feed kids in educational institutions, what could be some other ways we could think about it? You know you’re a nutritionist. And I'm just really curious.

00:28:38 Casey Cavanaugh

Well, I think they're input right, number one move on more of their input like I was actually just on a call recently with like the farm to school institute, the Shelby Group and we had a couple of different people there and they were saying like, you know, they the kids don't like school lunch. So I think like she is saying, like involving them more like maybe more formally and menu planning and those sort of things could help. I think like the rule of milk, right. That's always hard for us like that milk has to be in every meal. I think for like indigenous people or even, you know, just I think there's a high rate of lactose intolerance. So we do have to provide like lactose free. But I think sometimes like that sometimes like seems a little anti, you know, cultural or whatever. But I would say like just be really more input from the students and I think making them feel like that there's an environment for them to share because a lot of them are very tentative to share. Even though Shane says, bring your recipe and bring, you know this, some of them still don't feel like comfortable sharing. So we have to draw that out somehow.

00:29:39 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yeah, I agree with you. So we encourage them to bring a friend or two, you know, if they want to help out. We coordinate the staff for the shift to just watch those group of kids so we can continue on doing what we do in the kitchen and most of the most of the time the kids come through. And then from there you know, it's next week they want to try something else or doing cookies. And like you're saying that doing cookies on the weekend, which then we can incorporate that into our food hub and stuff like that.

00:30:16 Michelle

Wonderful. And then some of your food program connected or food activities connected to academics?

00:30:24 Shayn Mackaravitz

Yes, they do have a cooking class on the weekends and we also have a cooking class, but we're we only have one student right now. Last year we had five or six and that's where we would bring them in and we would set goals like for us at the kitchen and then also ask them like, what, what is something you would like to learn in the kitchen or something you would like to learn, you know, chemical safeties, prepping salad bar cooking, you know, not have them write down three to five ideas that they would like. And then we try to accomplish those, you know, give them a life skill on now they know how to do this. And then also a sense of accomplishment from us knowing we taught somebody something.

00:31:16 Casey Cavanaugh

Yeah, we do want to have them growing the gardens and stuff and in science classes. If we can't get the ad classes going, I think if we could do that in science classes, you know, there's a lot of opportunity out there. So eventually, I mean we do want to get there. I think the kids are seeing the start of the food hubs. We had one school in New Mexico. Last year, that planted a garden and then their kitchen staff kept it watered all summer and then they were able to harvest. They had Navajo squash, Navajo corn and they were able to then harvest and make a traditional meal in the fall. So I think it's really cool for them to see it go full circle like that.

00:31:54 Rick

I know Chemawa their school gardens as well on their way to from what I saw there and taking the tour.

00:32:00 Casey Cavanaugh

So broccoli is growing, yeah.

00:32:06 Rick

We'd like to thank everybody so much for listening today and thank you. Our wonderful guest, Shayn and Casey.

00:32:11 Casey Cavanaugh

Thank you. You're welcome.

00:32:12 Shayn Mackaravitz

Thank you, guys. Thank you, Rick. Thank you. Michelle, I would like to say if you ever are by Salem, stop at Chemawa and have a bowl of elk Stew or some bison stew!

00:32:23 Michelle

Nice. That sounds so good. Thank you.

00:32:24 Rick

All right. Good deal.

00:32:27 Rick

From the school was written, directed and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn, with the production support from Leanne Locher of Oregon State University. The podcast was made possible by a grant by the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:32:40 Michelle

The content and ideas on the Farm School podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University, Oregon Department of Education, the Bureau of Indian Education, or the United States Public Health Service, or the United States Department of Agriculture. The USDA, Oregon Department of Education and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:33:01 Rick

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.

00:33:10 Michelle

We'd love to hear from you. Definitely. Stop by. Leave a note. Give us an idea for a future podcast. Thanks again you guys for being on the.

00:33:18 Michelle

Podcast.

00:33:18 Casey Cavanaugh

Thank you for having us. Bye.

00:33:20 Michelle

Bye everyone.