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| Cafeteria staff serves Wellsville students Welch’s 100% NY Grape Juice slushies |
Wellsville, NY -
Students in Wellsville Secondary and High School celebrate the first day of
spring by kicking off a new program at lunch. New York Thursday is an
initiative in which a once a month, a school's menu features 100% NYS food. Schools
often showcase new recipes or in-season ingredients for students to try and
give feedback on. This month's NY Thursday's lunch included a NY Hot dog (Slate
Foods), milk (Upstate Niagara), Welch's Grape Slushie (Cool Tropics), apples
and roasted potatoes. Wellsville joins eight other districts in Erie County,
and this inaugural day proved to be an outstanding success! Both students and
cafeteria staff enjoyed making the switch from ordinary ingredients to ones
grown and produced right here in New York State.
However, Wellsville students are no stranger to local food.
Since September of 2018, their cafeteria has been serving students local beef
from Hoffman Farm every week for "Taco Tuesdays". Participation rates
have shown to increase dramatically for Wellsville on days when they serve
local food. Cafeteria Manager, Bob Meyers, explains, "The students can
tell that they are eating a higher quality ingredient, and therefore more
students engage with our cafeteria on these certain days. This indicates to me
that we're doing something right, and that we should continue purchasing more
local foods. When I do so, the cafeteria, the students, and the farmers all
win".
Wellsville CSD has been in the forefront of promoting Farm
to School in Allegany County. With the success of one NY Thursday under his
belt, Bob Meyers has plans to expand this program to all grade levels in his
district. "Bob has paved the way for other districts in the county to
start a NY Thursdays program" states Cassandra Bull, Farm to School Coordinator
at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Allegany County. "Many districts have
expressed interest in coordinating their menus to celebrate 100% local food
together once a month, and we are very excited to move forward collectively
with this goal in mind." Meyers, Bull, and nine other school districts
across Allegany and Cattaraugus counties have been working together to identify
and promote the usage of local food in K-12 public schools.
