The Old Guard, New Ideas: A Farm to School Reunion

In this special episode recorded at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Albuquerque, Michelle and Guest Host Christy Sherding sat down with the “Old Guard” of the Farm to School movement — Leaders whose vision and persistence helped shape school food into what it is today. From Detroit to Minneapolis and beyond, these leaders have spent decades planting seeds of change, building gardens in unexpected places, and transforming cafeterias into classrooms of nourishment and equity. Their stories remind us that innovation often begins with courage, collaboration, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Join us as we honor their legacy, celebrate their impact, and explore how their wisdom continues to guide the next generation of farm to school champions.

Transcript

Transcript- The Old Guard, New Ideas: A Farm to School Reunion

In this special episode recorded at the National Farm to Cafeteria Conference in Albuquerque, Michelle and Guest Host Christy Sherding sat down with the “Old Guard” of the Farm to School movement — Leaders whose vision and persistence helped shape school food into what it is today. From Detroit to Minneapolis and beyond, these leaders have spent decades planting seeds of change, building gardens in unexpected places, and transforming cafeterias into classrooms of nourishment and equity. Their stories remind us that innovation often begins with courage, collaboration, and a willingness to challenge the status quo. Join us as we honor their legacy, celebrate their impact, and explore how their wisdom continues to guide the next generation of farm to school champions.

00:00:05 Rick

Welcome everybody to the Farm to School podcast where you will hear stories of how youth thrive and children prosper, farmers prosper.

00:00:11 Michelle

When we learn how to... Everybody prospers. That's it- prosperity widely shared.

00:00:15 Rick

I was just bragging to Michelle how I got it. No, I have these memories after so many episodes where you thrive and just prosper, prosper. When we learn how to grow, cook and eat delicious, nutritious food ..and where the coffee is always on. 

00:00:33 Michelle

I brought like some coffee this morning. You're welcome.

00:00:35 Rick

I have it in my Rider. If you guys know the Rider is?  It’s what rock groups do when they say they're at a venue they like say I want Evian water at 38.5° and M&M’s with all the green ones picked out.

00:00:51 Michelle

Rick has a whole list of that.

00:00:52 Rick

So my Riders always have to have coffee for wherever we're at. So. So Michelle makes it for me and I make it..

00:00:59 Michelle

It's. good. You make it better. I'll be honest. He has lots of flavor. He like puts the little chocolate decorations on top and stuff.

00:01:08 Rick

I have chocolate whipped cream sometimes and do that and we get all the syrups and I got an espresso machine in my studio.

00:01:17 Michelle

So we're derailed only because we're just really excited about this particular episode.

00:01:22 Rick

Oh, my gosh. OK, so let's set this up. So the next bunch of episodes you all are going to listen to, pretty much are from the National Farm to Cafeteria conference in Albuquerque, NM that just got done in December 2025. Michelle says two  oh two five.

00:01:44 Michelle

Let it go. Let it go. . I'm a trendsetter.

00:01:46 Rick

Either one. Yeah, it's, it's, it's all good. So it's the same year, but. So I think she I think she knocked out like 15-16 some episodes or she did it solo because I wasn't able to travel there.

00:02:02 Michelle

I had an amazing host.

00:02:04 Rick

Well, right, so we yeah, we had a Guest host.

00:02:06 Michelle

I did have to carry all the equipment which like turns out my arms still are messed up. So thank you Rick for carrying all the podcast stuff usually.

00:02:13 Rick

There's really, there's a lot of equipment that we have for this, for the show to make it so awesome for you the listener. Yes. Thank you. And I know there's listeners now because from Michelle kept getting well. Yeah, people know. But people kept coming up saying, hey, listen to you all the time. So thank you out there for continuing to support us.

00:02:28 Michelle

I met two of them,  two! Yeah, actually, thank you, we have well over 1000 regular listeners at, you know, less than two years of broadcasting, yeah.

00:02:46 Rick

Regular listeners because we've had 16,000 hits so far, yeah.

00:02:50 Michelle

Yeah. So thank you all. We really appreciate it. We love hearing your comments and notes and when you're listening and things you want to hear more about.

00:03:00 Rick

So anyway, I wasn't able to go to this one. I had my plane ticket back and everything but just through something through work.. through a travel ban. I wasn't able to go. So but one of our last episodes we did with the Henry Ford, we had one of two guests, one was Christy Sherding.

00:03:21 Michelle

Christy Sherding!

00:03:22 Rick

And she goes.. You know, I could come to that and she was so into this at the time. We just kind of did a spur of the moment thing. And so for all these episodes, we're going to have a guest host, Christy.

00:03:33 Michelle

She's amazing. She has a background in journalism and, you know, being in museum studies, they are complete storytellers. And the week before this podcast that we were recording, they just released a new documentary farm to school last year off in America.

00:03:48 Rick

Nice. I just happened to be on my TV screen and saw it and I recorded it. I haven't watched it yet. It was on TV. It was on. Yeah, Hulu. Whatever channel it was. Right. So I'm sure that we are if you if you have a smart TV and you set it to…

00:03:59 Michelle

That's amazing.

00:04:05 Rick

Like if you just do a search for the Henry Ford documentary, you'll probably find it. I'm sure it's going to be on YouTube too. What? We'll put it in the show notes if we can. If we can find that. But I'm looking forward to seeing that because yeah, been really busy, but this it, I I'm just. I'm my gratitude goes out to you.

00:04:25 Rick

Well, and Christy, for doing so well, I listened to the 1st 4 episodes and I was just like oh, you know, like we always say the last one you listened to was your new favorite episode. Like it's so true. There's so many good ones in here and, yeah. And the good news is we're going to do this again. We're going to we have plans to go to the school garden Support organization when in February, correct?

00:04:54 Michelle

Yeah, I've been practicing, you know, I guess the main thing in kicking off this whole series of interviews we did at that particular location is it just struck by, you know in Oregon we say like, oh, we were the first. We're the first. We've spent well over a decade exporting ideas and processes. We did. You know, we're the first in the country that had farm school incentive legislation to pay schools grant programs that connected schools and gardens. We saw it as a systems approach. We had the position in the Department of Education, the position, Department of Agriculture, and we're the first state. I believe that also has a full time faculty position dedicated just to pharma school in the state. So you know a lot of things have had  a faculty position that the State University at the extension and land grant dedicated to it, other folks work on it, but it is actually anyway focused just on that. So you know we've been exporting things and being at this conference it was so clear to me that in 10 years people all over the country have piloted refined, and worked out the kinks to so many basically bottlenecks we have and it's time in Oregon to import, you know. And so a lot of these podcasts I was just grabbing folks that I was like, oh, can we do in Oregon? It was a little selfish, but it's also to help all of us, you know, I think it was Deb Eschelmeyer who would say, oh, it's R&D. We do R&D.  Rip off and duplicate.

00:06:29 Rick

That's not how I remember R&D stood for?

00:06:32 Michelle

But in the farm to school movement, it does like raise all ships, you know, work together.

00:06:36 Rick

Adapt! No, we don't steal. We adapt to our own needs.

00:06:40 Michelle

Well, we help each other. So anyway, so that's what a lot of that's why I'm really excited to relisten to these podcasts and mine them for great ideas.

00:06:48 Rick

We'd love to talk to them all. I mean, there's 1000 people there at the farm to caf.. 2000? but I mean, they all have a great story and that's what happened when I did this the other year in San Diego.

00:06:52 Michelle

Sure. Let's talk to people.

00:07:01 Rick

When we were just grabbing people and there's never a story that's not cool now. This one was so cool because you're very first episode. You happen to get a few dear friends that that we talked to, and one of them I tried to get on the show. I've been trying to get on the show for a year and.. She's just so busy, but she just doesn't have time. Someone was meant to be that you grabbed her. Your very first person you talked to was Betti Wiggins from Houston ISD, she's a food service director. She has a very long passed with farm to school, and all she'll introduce herself and tell you about that. But on her and Bertram Webber and Bertram, actually is our most popular episode. We've recorded him before. It's entitled “It's not school lunch,  It's lunch at school”  and he's been our most popular,  most listened to episode so far. And but Michelle and Bertram and Betti were on the original advisory Committee for National Farm to school network. And so the old guard, and I'm just listening to them. I pre-screened the episode by listening to it and just to be a fly on the wall and listen to these three women. This was so good. But Betti? I mean I know both these people, I've ate a school lunch at in Minneapolis, Saint Paul. It was. It was the most amazing farmer school meal. Like everything was local. There was fresh.

00:08:32 Michelle

Ohh, I've always went to what was it like?

00:08:42 Rick

They had breaded oven baked chicken breast and it was just it was amazing and you'll have to listen to John Bertram's episode. But like how he was just the kind of a disgruntled parent and chef and he just wanted to make change and he did it. And so there's that. And then, Betti, since I've met her a couple of times. I think the very first from the cafeteria conference I went to and I think it was 2009 in Detroit. I mean that kind of pushed me over the edge in front of the school, and I realized I wanted to do something from the school full time in my life because of that. But I met her there and I've toured a couple of her schools and remember seeing we had a school lunch that had fresh asparagus from the school garden there and on site and but I've seen Betti a few times and she probably doesn't even Remember Me at these. A couple of these conferences, but one conference I was speaking at and she comes up to me afterwards and she grabs my hand and looks me in the eye and goes “I would work for you.” That that's the biggest compliment I've ever had in my job. To see that person talk to me and like I connected with her. She probably doesn't remember now, but I'll take her up for that someday. But no, but it's just she's just such a wonderful person in our it means so much to us and from the school. So it was really, really awesome episode.

00:10:14 Michelle

Well, and one more thing about all the episodes we did at the National Farm to cafeteria conference is that it's the first time ever we had podcasters. So not only the farm to school podcast, but there are several other podcasters. Yeah, it was really neat. And we were set up to our next to our new friends at the Texas Small Farmers and ranchers. They have a farming ugly podcast to check out, and we all asked questions.

00:10:30 Rick

There was a gaggle of them, right?

00:10:45 Michelle

That resonated with our audiences and podcasts, but then also like, why they were there with the network, right. So the main thing is the national farm to school network really is the national convener of farm to school. And so like, you know everyone we talked about why that was so important to them. So we really hope you enjoy this series of interviews we did at that conference.

00:11:09 Rick

Well, let's listen to the first one. Let's take it away and find out why it's so special?

00:11:16 Michelle

Well, we're at the National Farm to cafeteria conference 2025 and had an amazing reunion with two people in the same area who have never met each other. So who are we here with?

00:11:28 Betti Wiggins

My name is Betti Wiggins. I'm the deputy chief of nutrition for the Houston Independent School district, but my greater claim is that I'm a Michigander native and I am the retired food service director from Detroit Public Schools Child nutrition program.

00:11:44 Michelle

And you started from the school in Detroit? Yes. That's when I first met you.

00:11:46 Betti Wiggins

Yes, right. It was like a labor of love. I have to give so much credit to all the collaborative partners we had. I started through Greening of Detroit, who had an urban agriculture program. And so my friend Ida Short, who was a school board member at the time, said let's do something. So what we did was she brought us Christmas presents for the urban agriculture program for 12 weeks. So yeah, that's how I got started. So I'm going around and doing what I because there's so much bending in Detroit. There was so much destruction that time that people had left and there was empty lots and everywhere. So urban agriculture was a natural for Detroit. And so I and I took the class, and so one day while we were out surveying an empty lot to start our garden, I happened to look up and I saw a school that was on a whole city block. And I said, Ida, why are we over here when we need to be doing something on our own property, she says. What I said, let's go over here and start a school garden. So it was that. The school on east side of Detroit, we started our first school garden and that was in 2012 or no 2011. Then and then thereafter, we had gardens all over the city, and the one that we have now, the one that they have, the one that that I left when I left in 2017 was Drew farms. And if you get an opportunity, talk to Matt Hargis at Drew farms and now you. The story behind Matt Hargis he was a new college graduate from Appalachian State in North Carolina, was born in North Carolina, and he grew up in North Carolina. And that's how we met. So he came on as an intern in 2011/2010 of the year, but after I left, he became the program director. So yeah, he. So I'm real proud of him and the work that he's done and he should be our MacGyver. He would think up stuff and then you know my farm manager was my retired brother, who is now 83 years old and he worked on the farm because he knew how to drive to tractors and all that stuff. Because I was raised on a farm in Michigan.

00:14:07 Michelle

To you, to your passion and background is agriculture.

00:14:13 Betti Wiggins

Our livelihood was agriculture. My dad was one of the farmers who came up with the Great migration and Mom didn't want us raised in the city. So he had a friend named Ray Kowalski who had made sausages. And they had a 40 acre farm up in Washington County. So that's how we got on the farm. And we were raising corn, soy, beans. They called them truck gardens at that time. Yeah, because she would literally pick the crops and put them on the truck. It wasn't fancy like it is now. Yeah, they called them truck gardens. And so Mom had a lot of friends in Detroit.

00:14:44 Christy Sherding

That's so cool. I've never heard of that before. I love that.

00:14:52 Betti Wiggins

Like she bought her produce and so I was just used to gardening and farming and stuff like that. And so it became very natural to me.

00:15:03 Michelle

How did you get into child nutrition?

00:15:04 Betti Wiggins

I didn't want to be a nurse.

00:15:08 Michelle

OK, what do you mean by that? 

00:15:11 Betti Wiggins

I started out in nursing school.

00:15:13 Betti Wiggins

Yeah, So I want to do something close to the Community, something I understood. So I registered as a Dietetic food science and dietetics in Wayne State University, where I graduated from.

00:15:28 Christy Sherding

I love that. What was your first job after graduating?

00:15:31 Betti Wiggins

My first job was at the Henry Ford.

00:15:35 Christy Sherding

I will get in here. This is so good. I’ll introduce myself to our listeners, we'll do it later. OK. So I'm loving this right now. Tell me all about it.

00:15:40 Michelle

Yeah. Let me do it later. But go ahead.

00:15:43 Betti Wiggins

My first job was at Henry Ford Hospital and one of my patients was Deuce's mother. 

00:15:54 Michelle

Oh wow, you can't see the mouth drop on Christy, but somewhere and we have another guest we haven't even introduced yet. he's gonna show up.

00:16:03 Christy Sherding

All these icons sitting here!

00:16:07 Betti Wiggins

But I mean that's how.. So I remember having to go out to Grosse Pointe because I lived on east side of Detroit and I had to go to her favorite ice cream shop. Yeah. 

00:16:16 Christy Sherding

I live in Grosse Pointe. Where's the ice cream shop?

00:16:20 Betti Wiggins

It's like that Main Street. I could, you know, the one where all the signs and yeah, yeah.

00:16:24 Christy Sherding

I think I know what you're talking. Yeah, it's funny. The world is so small.

00:16:27 Betti Wiggins

Yeah, but I remember, you know, that was my first job and I was a what's called a Dietetic technician and you know the thing.  Yeah. So I've got the and now I got to meet the one that I really like was Bill Ford. I made a school garden with Bill Ford's mom. Yes. Over at Lions Academy.

00:16:53 Christy Sherding

With Martha? Oh my gosh. You know, she just turned 100 years old. It's incredible. She's still moving around.

00:16:59 Betti Wiggins

I know, but OK, let me tell you that was the most fantastic time that I had. It was that it was at the Lions Academy. They sponsored a school. One of my schools called Lions Academy. Of course they their relationship to the Detroit Lions and in comes this lady and his long black limousine. And she had jeans and a pinstripe... And her garden.. she supported gardens and what they had did is they bought pizza for the whole community at. It was such a day over on the east side of Detroit. 

00:17:32 Christy Sherding

Awesome. That is fantastic. Again. She's incredible. She's still around.

00:17:34 Betti Wiggins

She was. Ohh yeah she is, I mean.

00:17:41 Michelle

That's my dream to be 100 and walking around with my garden gloves.

00:17:44 Christy Sherding

Well, she still comes to Firestone Farm at Greenfield Village and has tea twice a year. It's awesome because that's where she grew up. You know, as a little girl. And we have their family home and.

00:17:49 Betti Wiggins

Yeah, So who are you? 

00:17:56 Christy Sherding

So we met before, but my name is Christy sharding. I am the director of Donor Relations and Engagement at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, MI. But I also oversee our edible education programs, one of which was what we were just talking about earlier. Our farm to school lunch across America initiative.

00:18:15 Betti Wiggins

Well, I think you know one of the things that benefits of farm school just came so natural because if you're from Michigan, you understand farm, you understand. And if you look at how it was and the great thing that I'm really learning about our state is the history. It's a bunch of Eastern Europeans that came, who bought the farming, who bought the dairy, who bought the cheese making. Those are the things that made us we have a history of cheese making began that people don't even realize that, but it was mainly Eastern Europeans Czechs, Slavs, Romanians, because I was raised in a neighborhood. I was raised in Washington County. And my neighbors were to do the Wiszynski's, the Pulaski’s.

00:19:04 Christy Sherding

All the Ski’s.

00:19:06 Betti Wiggins

And it was dairy country because the barns were connected to the houses. So you would walk there, you go off you a breezeway and then and they would small dairies all over all over that part of Washington County and Monroe.

00:19:23 Michelle

And we even have a chance to introduce our other amazing guest.

00:19:28 Bertrand Weber

Well, what can I say after that? I'm not sure I can say anything after Betti.

00:19:33 Christy Sherding

Do you know this guy?

00:19:35 Betti Wiggins

Sorta kinda. He had, you know, he had my proxy for years. We were all and we got involved in the farm to school movement and the different food system change movement. And when I couldn't make a conference, I said, well, butchers got my proxy. So whatever.

00:19:36 Bertrand Weber

Kinda. Betti Wiggins. Betti Wiggins. I was the only person that could control her. When whenever things got out of control, I would get a call from someone and go. Can you take care of Betti, please? We need to control her.

00:20:03 Betti Wiggins

Because I have so much energy.

00:20:06 Bertrand Weber

She doesn't have any. As you can tell.

00:20:09 Betti Wiggins

I believe in two meetings, one to decide what we're going to do. 2. Discover the outcomes. Talk about outcome. I just can't. Not the gradualness of it. They, you know, food system change is really important to me. You know another anecdote. It's not anecdotes. The truth is how I really after we got engaged in urban agriculture. I was in my backyard planting watermelons. And my neighbor's grandson come over and he says Betti, what are you doing? I said I'm planting watermelon, he said. Ohh. Miss Betti. No, I said. What's the matter, he says. Don't you know what are those come from Kroger’s?

00:20:47 Bertrand Weber

You know, she has a book called Miss Betti.

00:20:50 Christy Sherding

Let's hear about it. Where can we get that? That's a great idea. Take it back home.

00:20:53 Betti Wiggins

It's about how I change the food system in Detroit and I didn't do it by myself. But what's the biggest thing about it? It was done by the University of Michigan, which is the Sleeping Bear Press, which is that that just gives me real chills to think that my home state and something I grew up in, the shadow of the universe.

00:21:18 Betti Wiggins

That was the Food service director in the Ann Arbor public Schools as well.

00:21:20 Christy Sherding

I didn't know you also did that. You were everywhere, making all the changes, everyone.

00:21:22 Bertrand Weber

Yes. And off shift she has been everywhere, she knows everybody. She's been everywhere. I don't know where she grew up, because every state is her home state.

00:21:33 Christy Sherding

Michigander.

00:21:34 Betti Wiggins

Michigan. That's where I grew up at four corners.

00:21:36 Michelle

Christy, I'm hoping we can sell you on us at the Henry Ford does display on farm to school.

00:21:46 Christy Sherding

I would love that. I was just telling a buddy earlier that I feel like our backyard, our Greenfield village is the ultimate edible schoolyard. We've got 4 working farms and it's all. It's all there. We've got a great edible education learning space.

00:21:58 Betti Wiggins

It’s Some of the reconstructed areas that you have in in, in it's well, yeah, I spent. I've worked for the Marriott Corporation.

00:22:02 Bertrand Weber

It's beautiful.

00:22:07 Christy Sherding

You have been everywhere.

00:22:09 Michelle

See, she has. I'm telling you and something that our listeners don't know, hear my heart is like really beating actually.  Because I know that both of you are nearing closing a chapter and your professional careers.

00:22:23 Betti Wiggins

Oh, come on, let's just call that that. You know, I'm old as dirt and he's probably glass, so.

00:22:29 Michelle

Adorable. Very adorable. And I've known you my entire career that we've been sitting together in board rooms and sessions.

00:22:36 Bertrand Weber

Have you told that the three of us were part of the original farm to school Advisory Council? Boy, actually, we were called the Advisory Council. We were not the board.

00:22:43 Christy Sherding

I knew Michelle was.

00:22:46 Michelle

We were the Advisory Council. I've been to more dinners, amazing dinners with you. And that's why I'm in shock right now with, like, 20 years later, here we are at the 2025 conference.

00:22:58 Bertrand Weber

If I'm not mistaken, in the first one was in Portland.

00:23:02 Michelle

Yeah, yeah. I had a seven week old baby.

00:23:05 Betti Wiggins

Oh, I remember now.

00:23:08 Michelle

He now drives around, calls me mom, lifts me up. Yeah.

00:23:09 Bertrand Weber

Yeah.

00:23:12 Betti Wiggins

No, it's his whole farm to school thing and I was so glad when and you know, like I said, I give big kudos to Debbie Stabenow. She I remember going to a meeting and Frank could move this doesn't mean anything to them but.

00:23:25 Christy Sherding

Ohh Frankenmuth Michigan. Our Michigan listeners out there now. It's a cute little Bavarian village.

00:23:32 Michelle

We're going to put it in the show notes. If we don't, we're going to put Betti's book and whatever.

00:23:32 Christy Sherding

In the middle of Michigan.

00:23:36 Betti Wiggins

Frankenmuth is Christmas events. It's Christmas every all year.

00:23:36 Speaker 3

In the show notes Christmas 364 days.

00:23:40 Bertrand Weber

Oh, it's a Christmas village. Mm-hmm.

00:23:41 Betti Wiggins

Yeah. And so Debbie Stabenow was having a meeting with Pat. Robert. He was the Co-chair. She was the chair. And those two? She called me up. She says. Betti, I'm having hearing and I need these farmers to know that there are people in Detroit who really believe in this farmer school and believe in. And so I was there and I don't know if there's a problem. But I started talking and everything. And they said, oh, well, we gotta come. We need to know. So she was a very smart about how she did it. She did a lot for Michigan farmers. A lot, a lot. An offer she used to carry around 1/2 a cup in her purse.

00:24:17 Christy Sherding

Tremendous amount of work.

00:24:26 Bertrand Weber

You know that stories come to quite a few.. The half cup when the USDA introduce that we must serve 1/2 a cup. Betti had a whole campaign with kids.

00:24:27 Christy Sherding

What is that?

00:24:36 Bertrand Weber

Having 1/2 cup in their hand saying this is 1/2 cup of fruit.

00:24:41 Betti Wiggins

I have the picture. I still have the picture. I was over at International Burton International School so it so it wouldn't look like everybody's got this idea. Everything and their choice is 100% African American. Well, I got this picture, And it has kids all holding half cups. And we want our half cups.

Christy Sherding

When was this?

00:25:01 Betti Wiggins

What year? 2014. I still have the picture on my camera.

00:25:07 Christy Sherding

You do see it? I want to see it, OK.

00:25:08 Bertrand Weber

The healthy, hungry kids act.

00:25:10 Betti Wiggins

Yes. And so I so professionally. I paid it. So we gotta help Debbie. How can we do it? We got all these kids with half cups. In the principals there and was like we want our half cups. We send it to 465 that we send it to the federal. I mean the senatorial. In the congressional, legislators to everybody in Michigan electronically to help this idea, we need our half cup. We want our half cup. I still have the picture and I hold on to it for ever because it was the first real…

00:25:40 Christy Sherding

It's impactful, right? I mean, I think that that's really cool.

00:25:44 Betti Wiggins

If you want to talk about Farm to school. A picture would be very helpful.

00:25:48 Michelle

We're gonna put it in the show notes and in the new display we're building at the Henry Ford. Yes, we're going to build it.

00:25:55 Christy Sherding

You know what? You're not wrong, Michelle. Feel like if I have anything to say about it. Yeah, we're doing, we're doing this.

00:25:59 Michelle

I want to just because this is such a brief moment in time, you know, with Buddy and Bertrand do a back, we are looking at the photo. You can't see it- the podcast is pretty remarkable. A retrospective looking back almost 20 years, 18 years from the first Board Meeting Advisory Board, we were all on.

00:26:23 Bertrand Weber

That's right. I was that. Oh, yeah, that's before me. Name. Yeah.

00:26:27 Betti Wiggins

They've been, I can't remember because I was. I was chairperson of the fundraising cause. How did I get that job? I did pretty good because you know everyone, that's why.

00:26:38 Michelle

I wanna ask something, but what's the question I wanna ask like like just looking back 20 years like what would we even say?

00:26:45 Betti Wiggins

I would. First off I had to tell Bertrand something that. He really piqued my interest and really got me to be more aggressive about feeding kids good quality food when he has a story about how he got into school food and I mean people need to hear that because this guy was, you know, not what you call background keep your typical food service folk. But to hear his story and to hear what he's done in Minneapolis, and I will tell you a lot of that was inspiration. For what I did in Detroit and that is that's the highest compliment my mom said. You always give people their flowers while they live. You need to know. Well, that's what. That's what that's in the black community. You know, you don't you don't, do you no good laying in the coffin. Tell you now that and I really want to thank you for being a friend. Being a partner, being a buddy, and teaching me how to crush garlic.

00:27:48 Bertrand Weber

Your first French restaurant.

00:27:48 Betti Wiggins

I think, yes. That's what we did.

00:27:52 Michelle

He took you to your the first French restaurant?

00:27:54 Betti Wiggins

We spent a whole afternoon going through a menu at a French restaurant. We ate our way through it.

00:27:57 Bertrand Weber

Drinking wine. Just having a wonderful time.

00:28:02 Christy Sherding

You guys are sitting here praising each other, and I think Michelle and I need to show you this is such a sweet moment to witness.

00:28:06 Betti Wiggins

Well, we were always. What did she get? She get along with that weird white guy with the ponytail.

00:28:15 Bertrand Weber

And she was the crazy, crazy African American woman.

00:28:19 Christy Sherding

We're gonna put pictures of the show notes.

00:28:22 Betti Wiggins

No, but it was it… You could always and every time we got the chicken legs that we yeah we we…

00:28:28 Bertrand Weber

Was it school food focus?

00:28:30 Michelle

School food focus. The three of us were also on that Advisory Board.

00:28:32 Bertrand Weber

That's great. I got your proxy for that. 

00:28:43 Betti Wiggins

We wanted with the farm raised chicken legs, antibiotic free.

00:28:47 Bertrand Weber

The Midwest, Midwest menu, yes. And we did the Midwest menu and Detroit didn't have enough kitchens to cook the chicken drumstick. So I worked with a manufacturer. But anyway we found someone to cook the chicken for Betti.

00:29:04 Betti Wiggins

In Missouri.

00:29:05 Michelle

It was in Missouri, the Commodity processor. But you didn't know because we never got that through. Focus works so hard trying to get that.

00:29:11 Betti Wiggins

Commercially, the guy cooked his oven roasted chicken legs and I was I was just not going to get my kids. My kids had had chicken with a bone in it about the whole thing of having kids understand what real food looks like it. And again, that happened when virtual started. I started talking to him about his menu and he designed his menu and the things, and then I, you know, I took chocolate milk off the menu in Michigan because I said I'd never saw a cow who delivered chocolate milk.

00:29:44 Christy Sherding

like a brown cow.

00:29:47 Betti Wiggins

Chocolate milk for five years. The kids never had chocolate milk.

00:29:48 Bertrand Weber

Or skim milk.

00:29:49 Bertrand Weber

00:29:52 Betti Wiggins

Why are you doing that? I said. Because my kids needed calories. And when you put chocolate milk on a tray, the first thing they did and that's not their fault. It had a lot to do with the length of lunch times. That's something that we really need to talk about, giving kids adequate enough time to eat. And I think the PTA could have some impact on it. The PTA had to say, you know my kid, I sent a lunch to my kid. He takes one bite out the sandwich and I bring. And even if he's a brown bagger, he brings it back home. And So what happened? I didn't have enough time to eat. And so I figured I'd take away chocolate milk. They could go to at least the food 1st. And then and you know, so we have White Monk, and now I'm hearing whole milk is coming back. I'm kind of excited about. I don't know if that I'm going to be as a heretic or whatever, but I really like the idea of holding it coming back because it gives kids choices.

00:30:46 Bertrand Weber

Have never seen a cow that delivers skim milk. What comes out of that cow's whole milk?

00:30:53 Betti Wiggins

And I'm gonna tell you, I was raised in the country, and I never had pasteurized milk, so I went to the city. And so I've had raw milk my meal every now and then. She would put it on the stove. Heat up just a little bit

00:31:09 Bertrand Weber

Well, and one of the thing that you know, she talks about the food, but Betti's advocacy.

I have used the term the kid at the end of the cul-de-sac. And that picture that Betti painted about it's not the kid that qualify for free and reduced that needs the help. It's the one that's forgotten at the end of the cul-de-sac, the one where parents work so hard, but they don't qualify for free meals or reduced meals, and they can't afford to buy any food. That's who needs the help. And that picture of the kid at the end of the cul-de-sac that we forget about has resonated with me forever, so I might have helped Betti put salad bars in her school. But she reminded me every day that everything we do, we need to remember that there is that kid at the end of the cul-de-sac that we forget about.

00:32:14 Betti Wiggins

And interesting. Well, thank you for that. But it has started in Michigan, in Grosse Pointe, at the Ladies, the Junior League of Grosse Pointe invited me out to talk about feeding children.

00:32:14 Bertrand Weber

So for that I thank you.

00:32:23 Christy Sherding

I'm familiar.

00:32:29 Betti Wiggins

And so I get in there and I'm like now they're gonna want me to start talking about all these little starving little children on the street corners of Detroit. And I started talking about the kids at the end of the cul-de-sac. And I just painted the picture of reality, given the kind of economy that we had in Detroit, you could be an engineer making six figures and then all of a sudden you're fired and all of a sudden you still got that house to take care of. You got insurance payment. And the first thing to go is food. And I had found that out when I was at a Costco's, and there was this man from his church buying food. I said, well, where's your church at? And he says, oh, where's Saint Clair shores or?

00:33:11 Betti Wiggins

What?

00:33:12 Christy Sherding

Yeah.

00:33:12 Betti Wiggins

And he started explaining to me that his church had a pantry. So I took that, and I started researching some statistics and stuff like that. And it was a woman who stood up. And she said after it was over. Because folks don't want to be associated with it, we might need some help. And she told me. I'm glad you mentioned that because I'm having a heck of a time feeding myself and my and my son's family as well. So I mean, and that's the reason I see meals and no charge. I don't call it three meals. I think. See pee again. Thank you, Debbie Stabenow. She's a drum roll for that. And it really wasn't just about feeding poor kids, because at our conscience level, we're going to take care of those kids. But we kind of overlook the kids I'm missing. No government, the Governor Medical Museum in Houston, TX, and I was walking to working with Lisa Hoffman, who is the President of a brighter bites. And we were talking and I started explaining to her about the kids at the end. No cul-de-sac. There's this girl, beautiful little redheaded green eyed girl. Tears are running down her face that I'm talking, she said. Oh my God, I get off the stage and she hugs me, she says. I'm so glad you talked about the kids today. And Nicole de SAC, I was one of them and she explained to me how her mother and father had gotten a divorce and mom's trying to get child support you, Eddie, and they just didn't have enough money. And if it had not been for the school lunch program that she got her school breakfast and school.. But that the situation, so we need to take this thing about hunger as a civil right and not a privilege. Being well fed should be a civil right for all our kids and not a yeah, OK, not to go hungry to privilege. No. We need to show that's. That's how you know. Again, I I can see it. I I guess that's been working in so many different environments. You know, working in Ann Arbor where you could find a free lunch if you throw out on the street but could go just down the street there. So it will. So again that that's where my passion came from was feeding kids and making sure kids are treated hungry. Kids are treated with dignity. And in school, goes up as well because parents do sitting there, kids to school to get a bill that's powerful.

00:35:46 Christy Sherding

I have a question for you guys. So I'm a parent. I have 3 kids. You guys have done all three of you. Actually, this is for all three of you. What is one piece of advice that you could give a parent who wants to make change in their school lunch room? Right. So I see what my kids eat every their brown baggers, by the way, but.

00:36:05 Bertrand Weber

First, first thing you need to change a food program cannot change if parents will consistently send brown bag to the school.

00:36:16 Christy Sherding

So perfect that I said that.

00:36:19 Bertrand Weber

If you think of a restaurant, I always use that metaphor. An empty seat is the most expensive thing a restaurant can have. A brown bagger is the most expensive thing. Expensive thing. A school food program has, because that robs revenue from the department. Which then compounds the issue with not having the budget to get better food. So, and I remember attending PTO's when I first started in Minneapolis and going.

00:36:50 Michelle

Parents, future organizations.

00:36:50 Bertrand Weber

I know.

00:36:51 Bertrand Weber

Parent, teacher organization or PTA, parent, teacher Association, but I remember telling them you're not going to like this. But I need you to send your kids to eat the food. I don't like the food we're serving, but I can't make changes. Unless you're behind me, you support. You're the driving force. Here's what we can do. And as a parent, you could say, perhaps salad bar is the first step you can do. OK, that does not involve cooking. It's fresh.

00:37:13 Christy Sherding

The driving force. Right.

00:37:27 Bertrand Weber

And it involves farm to school. That's the best place to put it. But as a parent, you might not think of that is the biggest thing you can do is send your kids to eat the school food.

00:37:38 Christy Sherding

That I would never know that I didn't. I would never even think about that.

00:37:41 Betti Wiggins

Well, and that little selfish thing, how many hours in your too busy day do you spend shopping looking for packaging? Decided. Honey, what do you want? What kind of sandwich do you want? How many? How many hours do you have? I know you're super mom and every you're super busy. How much time do you spend? A lot. Yeah. So guess what. Let Bertrand and I help.

00:38:01 Christy Sherding

I love that. Now I'm gonna outsource is what I'm gonna do.

00:38:07 Betti Wiggins

Right. I'm outsource you, and then tell you what else happens. One of the biggest barriers, I think to participation too is the amount of time that kids have to eat.

00:38:20 Christy Sherding

It's not a lot.

00:38:20 Betti Wiggins

It's not. It's 15 minutes and the other one that bothers me is how the younger kids eat earlier than the older kids. I think that that's something that the parents can do something about parents can insist was the last time you went to lunch, and your boss said you got an hour of lunch, but you only got 10 minutes to eat? When’s the last time you went. You went to eat somewhere and someone told you. Now be quiet. Don't talk to your friends. Yeah. Blow the horn. Yeah.

00:38:48 Bertrand Weber

I have a blow horn.

00:38:52 Michelle

Quiet, no talking.

00:38:53 Christy Sherding

Well, and they pack luncheon with recess. And so the kids are hurrying through lunch so they can get so. So I can go to recess.

00:38:57 Betti Wiggins

Ohh so you know what the problem is. OK, So now we have a task force. You've just organized the first task. One woman.

00:39:04 Bertrand Weber

You do recess speech. Do the recess before lunch?

00:39:08 Christy Sherding

That's a great idea. We're solving problems here.

00:39:10 Bertrand Weber

They come, they come in hungry as opposed to her throwing their food away to go play outside the other thing I think that's really important in that subject that parents need to understand it's and I don't want to bring a controversial subject here, but the teacher union as a huge factor into the time that is allowed in the lunch room because it is written in their contract that teachers need the time to themselves and a lot of that is driven not by the principal. But by contracts? Yeah, or the negotiations

00:39:47 Christy Sherding

interesting.

00:39:48 Betti Wiggins

Or the number of minutes in between or buses, when they do a master schedule. When principals do a master schedule, the first thing they do is they lay down the bus route and the time the buses come, then the teachers and their break period then then that amount of hours that you have to have for the academic day. Oh, by the way, this little thing called lunch that 100% of the building participate in it fuels their bodies, their brains, all of It. I want to talk about the civilizing children. Just what's the first thing you asked your child? If you pick your kid up, I don't care if you're on the on the, on the, on the, on the car line or you meet. Your kid on the corner and you look at him and you see him get off the bus and you look at him and see he's right. The first thing out of your mouth is, are you hungry? That's that Maslow hierarchy of needs stuff. And that's where we're at in that whole, if you believe in miracles, hierarchy and needing that whole pyramid, we're at that physical creature. Are you hungry because the kid can't do kids not. And so I know a lot of parents where you I gotta go get them something to eat to calm down. Like what? They didn't eat? What you know any and or to go in and say lunch is over and watch kids march to garbage cans because they did not have enough time to eat and they did not have enough time to socialize. When you go to lunch with your friends and you've been at your desk banging away and everything you want to find out, you even want to say God, you really look good today. Or what can, you know… The kids don't have and we can teach our social session and in in in the lunch. That's so, so important that lunch is just not about giving calories to, you know, help the child got 100 cows. I've learned. I think all of the impact too much has on attendance. Healthy. A hungry child cannot learn. But I have some child learns nothing so. So we have to think about the impact that we have on school meals have on the whole time.

00:41:47 Michelle

Yeah. Has anyone done work on..? I know we've talked, people have talked about it, but made headway on the time spent in the cafeteria being counted as educational time school minutes.

00:42:00 Betti Wiggins

That that they're working on it. And here's one thing I tell you. I've seen state of Texas. This is found that they didn't fund it, but they got the right idea. We just came out with three new components to the education versus nutrition education, you must provide nutrition education. The next is physical activity. You must provide physical activity, and the third one is. This will make your is the local procurement of food.

00:42:27 Bertrand Weber

What a concept.

00:42:34 Michelle

This is new state.

00:42:35 Betti Wiggins

This case, Senate Bill 25, read it for yourself. I almost fell out of my loafers, love. Then I found out it's not funded. So it's an unfunded mandate. But it's the right idea. It is the right. You'll never guess how it came about. Make America healthy again.

00:42:54 Bertrand Weber

You're going to tell us?

Make America healthy again, Texas. And they were so and it was bipartisan. And you get something bipartisan in the state of Texas Didn't, honey, you don't done something. And then we started reading it and said, well, wait a minute. Where's the money? How we're going to. So it's an unfunded mandate. So, you know, the Texans are going are very loving. Gargantuas kind of felt they like to feel good. And then you go back and say, you know, excuse me, where's the money? So they better cowboy Up in the state of Texas and find the money for what I think is the best bipartisan legislation I've seen in that state in a long time.

00:43:41 Christy Sherding

It would be such a great example for others too, I.

00:43:44 Betti Wiggins

Mean Senate Bill 25, three components. They even talk about establishing a committee that. Yeah. Yeah. And I've already said, make sure there's some school food folk on it because people don't realize we have 1900 and 1098 opportunities we get in a year and multiplied by all the time. So we're very integral to that kids nursing and that kid and also the things that he eat. We taught kids to eat salads and broccoli. Because we put it on our menus, salad bars that they could reach, not the one.

00:44:25 Christy Sherding

What an ingenious idea. So there it's right there for them. Accessible.

00:44:34 Michelle

There’s so much stuff happening here. We're actually in the hallway of the vendor show for the National Fund cafeteria conference, and there's a lot of people waving and winking. I'm taking photos and so I know. Yeah. So I know Betti and Bertram got to get going to their next thing, so I just wanted to throw a lot of flowers at both of you.

00:44:53 Christy Sherding

Celeb moment here with you Guys.

00:45:03 Michelle

Not only doing this work is a lot of effort, because there's always another hill to climb just every step you take, and knowing that farming is all about cultivating human beings. My experience in this work has been so.

00:45:15 Betti Wiggins

Yes.

00:45:20 Michelle

Enriched and made meaningful by knowing the two of you in very different ways and knowing and connecting around our families and our lives in over 20 years, a lot in life happens. So thank you, Betti.

00:45:36 Michelle

Thank you Bertrand. I'm throwing tons of flowers at you.

00:45:39 Betti Wiggins

You can I say something else. Henry Ford, Henry Ford and the Henry Ford village to Greenville villages on you. It pays a lot of homage to farmers and we need to understand that our small farmers are not talking about Niagara farmers. I'm talking about our farm, our small farmers are the most savvy businessmen that there has to be anybody that that depends upon the sun, the moon, the stars and God's graces, and still to come back and do it year after year to appreciate those folks.

00:46:03 Christy Sherding

I love that. Well, thank you guys. This is really a privilege.

00:46:17 Bertrand Weber

Thank you. This was fun. Just walking by the table.

00:46:20 Christy Sherding

I know I love it. Everyone. Bye.

00:46:27 Michelle

We'd like to thank you so much for listening today and thank you, Christy, sharing from Henry Ford for being our very special guest co-host.

00:46:34 Rick

Thanks Christy!  Farm to School was written, directed, and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn with production support from the LeAnn Locher and Lauren Tobey of Oregon State University. This podcast was made possible by in part by a grant from the United States Department Agriculture.

00:46:51 Michelle

The content and ideas on the Farmer School podcast to do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University or the United States Department of Agriculture, and both the USDA and Oregon State University are equal opportunity providers and employers.

00:47:06 Rick

Do you want to learn more about from the school, check out other episodes, show notes, contact information and much more by searching farmed school podcast, OSU.

00:47:15 Michelle

You know, I've been doing farm to school my entire career for over 25 years and there's always something more to learn about farm to school, but definitely check out the other episodes.

00:47:23 Rick

Alright,  we'd love to hear from you. Stop by the website we just talked about to say hello or give us an idea for a future podcast we'd love to hear from you, thank you.