Farm to SchoolThis week, a few ACEnet employees spent the morning at Hocking College helping Rural Action process corn for their Farm to School program. Rural Action’s Farm to School program involves purchasing produce from local farmers, like the many producers at the Chesterhill Produce Auction, then processing this produce with the help of Rural Action staff, local students and volunteers. This processed food is then distributed to school districts in the area for use in their cafeterias.

 

Farm to School

As our Food Access Partners Coordinator, Carrie Carson, expressed a need for a little extra help
processing recently, other employees at ACEnet decided to volunteer a few hours and contributed to the processing of 55 dozen bushels of corn! There were also a few other new volunteers, so the process of shucking, washing, cutting and freezing the corn went relatively quickly; however, after staring at corn for a few hours straight I’m not sure I’ll be cooking any myself anytime soon.

 

 

Farm to School has also been processing tomatoes and green beans for school cafeterias; so many local, fresh veggies being made available to so many students! Their goal is to distribute more than 5,000 lbs of fresh, local food to local schools this year.

Farm to School
If you would like to have just as much fun as we did processing produce, contact Caitlin Bond,
AmeriCorps VISTA Farm to School Coordinator at caitlinb@ruralaction.org or 740-677-4047 to
volunteer.

Community Update by ACEnet Multimedia Designer, Alexandria Polanosky