Nutrition and community: Newfield CSD hosting second annual fall harvest dinner

Along with colder temperatures and the changing leaf colors, fall is known for food. In Newfield Central School District, the district’s farm-to-school program is working to ensure its nearly 700 students are provided fresh, nutritious and locally sourced meals this season — as it does all year round. 

The initiative is part of the Tompkins County School Food Reboot program, a partnership that began in 2022 between local school districts and two nonprofits: the Chef Ann Foundation and the Park Foundation. The program provides school districts with funding, food preparation training and recipes, among other resources, to help them offer more whole ingredients and scratch-made meals to their students.

“The program is all about supporting local farmers and building community, but the heart of it is making sure that our children have access to nourishing food,” said Laurie Pattington, the district’s farm-to-school teacher since last year. “One of our missions is to help students become courageous eaters and to connect them with diverse cultures through shared food experiences. The idea is to teach students that new foods aren’t necessarily dangerous, and having a healthy diet means having really diverse foods.”

This month, the district is hosting its second annual fall harvest dinner, which Pattington said will connect the three C’s: community, classroom and cafeteria. 

The theme of last year’s inaugural dinner, which more than 100 people attended, was the “three sisters” ingredients that are traditionally grown together —  corn, beans and squash — which were incorporated into the North and South American dishes that were served. This year, the theme centers around root vegetables.   

Pattington said that over a dozen regional farms and organizations will donate food for the dinner. Stick and Stone Farm in Ithaca will donate carrots, Van Noble Farm in Trumansburg will donate smoked pork and beets and Tompkins Cortland Community College students in Dryden will make vegetable lasagna. Elementary school students will also prepare some of the meals, according to Pattington. 

“All students’ and staff families are invited to enjoy all of this amazing local food, a lot of which is being made by students,” she said. “Our students have also been learning about root vegetables this year, so it’ll be an exciting opportunity for them to show what they’ve learned.”

In September, the district was certified by the state Department of Agriculture and Markets to receive reimbursement under the 30% New York State Initiative. The initiative, which began in 2018, increases the state reimbursement schools receive for lunches from about 6 cents per meal to about 25 cents per meal if the school district purchases at least 30% of its food from New York providers. 

“[The reimbursement] doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you spread it over every single child who eats lunch throughout the entire year, including over the summer, it’s a pretty big difference,” Pattington said, noting that the district purchases the majority of its dairy and beef products from in-state farms.     

Mike Hudak, the district’s food service director, said that the Tompkins County School Food Reboot program provided funding for the district to add salad bars to its cafeterias, which he said “provide us with a canvas to play around with some of the fun, healthy foods we can make,” such as honey-glazed roasted carrots and cucumber-and-dill salad. 

About 67% of meals served in Tompkins County public schools are speed-scratch or cooked-from-scratch meals, according to the Chef Ann Foundation, a Colorado-based nonprofit that’s been helping schools serve healthier meals since 2009. 

Investing in nutritious, locally grown food has been a growing effort in school districts nationwide. Schools reported purchasing $1.8 billion in local food from farmers, ranchers, fishermen and food processors in their communities during the 2022-2023 school year, according to the most recent U.S. Department of Agriculture Farm to School Census.   

Pattington added that teaching students about nutritious food and how to make it is vital to instilling healthy eating habits early on. 

She teaches elementary school students how to plant and harvest crops in the district’s gardens, noting that “for every crop that a class grows, they’ll be able to harvest it when they come back in the fall.”

Students learn about different aspects of food production, depending on their grade level. First graders learn about pollinators and visit Sunset View Creamery, a dairy farm in Odessa, to see how dairy products are made. Second graders learn about and make foods related to international holidays, such as latkes for Hanukkah and colcannon, a traditional Irish dish made from mashed potatoes, cabbage and kale.

Older students learn about foods popular in indigenous cultures and visit a regional sugar bush farm to learn how maple syrup is made. Pattington added that the district has its own maple trees, which will be used by students to make maple syrup in the future.

“In the ’90s, everything was prepackaged. You threw the food in the oven and handed it out to the kids,” Hudak said. “Versus where we are today, where we’re getting local ingredients and teaching students about them.” 

Pattington added that the district is always thinking of creative ways to promote healthy eating, such as Newfield Elementary School’s upcoming “Apple Crunch” event, a time when all of the elementary school students gather for an assembly and simultaneously take a bite of an apple.       

“The district has always provided students with nutritious meals, but students wouldn’t always try them,” Pattington said. “We just didn’t have the capacity to cook meals from scratch, but we now have the capacity to take whole ingredients and create plenty of healthy meals with them. We’re hoping that the fall harvest dinner will be an annual event and each year will just get better and better.” 

This year’s fall harvest dinner, which is open to families of students and staff, is scheduled from 6 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 13 in the Newfield High School cafeteria. People interested in attending are asked to RSVP by completing an online form on the district’s website, newfieldschools.org.