(From left) Elizabeth Valentine and Luna Laurent, first graders at St. John Bosco Catholic School, both grabbed maple syrup from Jorns Sugar Bush for their French toast sticks. Photo by Eleanor Corbin.
But Sturgeon Bay schools vow to keep it fresh
On any given day within the Sturgeon Bay School District and at St. John Bosco Catholic School, students’ lunches include a variety of locally sourced foods – cheese curds from Renard’s, smoked salmon from Baileys Harbor Fish Company, spaghetti from Clario Pasta and many more.
For the past year and a half, food service director Jenny Spude has used funds from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Local Food to Schools Program to foster these relationships.
On March 7, the USDA terminated this program, which provided grants across the country to connect schools with small, local farmers, according to the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI).
Over the three years the program existed, it provided $11.4 million to Wisconsin schools, according to the DPI. Sturgeon Bay School District received $26,000 in grant money.
While Sturgeon Bay will no longer receive any additional funds to support local food connections, Spude is confident that the relationships the school district has formed with providers will continue.
“Once you develop relationships, when they are strong and needed, I feel like they can support themselves,” she said.
Spude describes these funds as a “stimulation grant,” meant to help districts build connections, not indefinitely fund local food purchases.
When Spude learned of the program’s termination, she reached out to local suppliers to learn if they could provide comparable costs to the district’s primary vendor. And they did.
“They knew after these last few years of working with us, this is a valuable partnership,” she said.
Food purchased locally has the benefit of traveling a shorter distance from the field to the table, retaining more nutrition and flavor, according to Spude, a registered dietitian.
Students at Sturgeon Bay schools enjoy locally-caught, omega-3-rich fish, real maple syrup instead of fake syrup, baked goods made with fresh shell eggs in place of cartons of liquid eggs, among others.
The Local Foods to Schools Program has the added benefit of teaching students more about where their food comes from, Spude said. Signs on the lunch line are placed next to any ingredient sourced locally, including the name of the farm with pictures.
“Door County, for years, has been a community where we have such rich agricultural ties that we should be reminding kids of that,” she said.
Through this grant, the Sturgeon Bay School District formed new partnerships with Emerald Acres Farms, Clario Pasta, Renard’s Cheese, Country Ovens’ Cherry Del-Lite and Baileys Harbor Fish Company, while furthering existing partnerships with Jorns Sugar Bush and Waseda Farms.
Spude said she hoped other schools were able to take advantage of the Local Food grant money while it was available. However, that wasn’t the case. The Peninsula Pulse confirmed through school district officials at Gibraltar, Sevastopol, Southern Door and Washington Island that Sturgeon Bay is the only district in Door County that received funding under this USDA program.
Looking at food service at Sturgeon Bay next year, there are still several uncertainties, Spude said. School lunch at the district is entirely USDA-funded, she explained, meaning they are susceptible to federal-level changes.
If 25% or more of a school’s student population is eligible for free meals, the school qualifies for the Community Eligibility Provision as part of the National School Lunch Program (NSLP), which allows the school to offer meals at no cost to all enrolled students, according to the USDA.
Sturgeon Bay is also the only school district in Door County to be a part of this program. Non-profit private schools are eligible for the NSLP, like St. John Bosco Catholic School in Sturgeon Bay, which partners with the Sturgeon Bay School District to offer their hot lunch program.
As Spude navigates funding changes, she said she will continue to prioritize local, fresh food for students.
“I will continue to purchase like I’ve done right now: when I can buy local, at or even below the cost of what I would need for a food item off of a large delivery vessel, I’m going to do that,” she said.
The Local Food to Schools program differed from the Farm to School program administered by the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, though the latter also links schools with local foods.
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