Many Chicopee families rely on school meals to ensure their children are well fed. Chicopee Fresh is on a mission to combat food insecurity while supporting local economies. The program is making a difference at all schools, including takeaway breakfasts, classroom breakfasts, nutritious lunches, and even classroom catering for special occasions.
Chicopee Fresh is the farm-to-school program of Chicopee Public Schools. Nearly eight years ago, the district received a grant from the Kendall Foundation to launch Chicopee Fresh, connecting Chicopee school cafeterias with local farmers and food producers, creating a system that other school districts could emulate and promote. Allows you to develop a vegetable garden. A dynamic initiative has put down strong roots to overhaul school feeding programs and introduce locally sourced ingredients.
Today, food service director Melanie Wilk and her team of 105 employees serve 5,500 lunches a day at 15 schools. Chicopee Fresh serves nearly 900,000 meals a year, costing them about $3 million. About 15% of that, or $450,000, is spent on locally grown products.
Wilk credits Chicopee Fresh’s progress toward food security in the community to her employees. “Our team is hard-working, flexible and open-minded. Our longest-serving employee has been with her for 38 years. We are passionate about trying out new programs that showcase healthy foods,” says Wilk.
Wilk says: I want to reach out to the whole family by sending recipes home, taste-testing the kids at school, and creating a variety of dishes using local ingredients. “
Most of the feedback the Chicopee Fresh team receives is positive. “Most of the time, the kids enjoy the food we serve,” Wilk says. “Helping children develop positive relationships with food, learning how food affects local economies, and recognizing how healthy food affects their bodies. We try to make an impact from an early age,” she adds. Some data show that from 8 to 12 trials she needs before a child likes or tries a new food. “We keep trying,” says Wilk.
Our baking program is locally sourced with fresh, homemade ingredients each week. A recent grant from the New England Dairy Council is funding smoothie programs at both high schools as another way to incorporate fresh, local produce into breakfast menus.
Chicopee is also one of the only local school districts where Farm to School program coordinator Brianna Jackson works full time. In this role, Jackson manages his nine school gardens and farm-to-school activities. This includes planting and harvesting and developing new recipes in line with the state’s harvest of the month program.
When restrictions imposed by COVID-19 prevented parents from bringing in food from home for classroom celebrations, the team began catering in the classrooms to protect them. providing people with fun, healthy treats for birthdays and celebrations at a low cost. Catering is done through Chicopee Fresh, so the food delivered to the classroom is checked to accommodate student allergies.
When the pandemic closed schools, families that depended on school meals every day to feed their children were hit hard. Between traveling and childcare during lockdown, some parents had difficulty getting meals from programs like Chicopee Fresh. “We saw opportunities to bring food to families instead of having them come to us,” Wilk says.
Before the pandemic hit, Chicopee Fresh staff dreamed of a way to deliver food to families in food trucks. Wilk says: He applied for and received $153,000 to fund the food truck. “
Last summer, Chicopee Fresh used the truck to distribute meals at a library, four parks and a community center, multiplying the amount of summer meals distributed thousands of times. Wilk says: This truck is currently used for after-school meal pickups at the Chicopee Library during the school year.
“I grew up in Chicopee and am passionate about this community,” says Wilk. “I am also a parent and I always see myself somehow combining nutrition and children and I feel that this role is the perfect combination of these passions. We love watching and we love sharing our programs with others.”
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Lisa Goodrich is the Communications Coordinator for Communities Involved in Sustainable Agriculture (CISA). Shop locally this holiday her season and visit buylocalfood.org/find-it-locally. Everything you need for decorating, cooking and gifting for the holiday season.
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