District and Hospital Partner to Bring Healthy Foods to Students

COOPERSTOWN, N.Y.—The foodservice departments at 1,000-student Cooperstown Central Schools and Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital have teamed up to add fresh produce to the students’ lunch menus.

Two years ago, a parent of one of the district’s students started an organic garden at the elementary school. With the help of Melinda Kilmer, foodservice supervisor for the district, produce from the garden is being incorporated into the schools’ meals.

After getting the garden running, the parent and Kilmer wanted to increase the presence of fresh vegetables in the schools’ menu, so they decided to host “guest chef” days using produce from the garden. Brian Wrubleski, foodservice director at Bassett Hospital, was invited to participate last fall as the first guest chef.

“Cooperstown is a very little, rural town in upstate New York,” Wrubleski said. “It’s a very close- knit community. The hospital is the main entity as far as employment. I was at a bank and I ran into the lady who runs the organic garden. I told her I could help her out.”

Last October, Wrubleski and some of his staff from the hospital spent the day cooking in the district’s cafeterias with the schools’ foodservice workers. The menu consisted of a light Alfredo pasta dish, a chicken and vegetable dish, butternut squash rolls and beet brownies.

Wrubleski made some items cooked to order as the students came through the lunch lines because he said it was important for the students to see that healthy food can taste good.

“We showed the kids some different alternatives, and I still get parents who said their kids really enjoyed it,” Wrubleski said. “With everything that’s going on as far as obesity and diabetes, the kids have to know the basics about what they can eat.”

Wrubleski said figuring out the logistics of planting the garden and then using the produce in the schools’ kitchens has been the biggest challenge for the project. “I wanted to try and change some of the culture as far as what some of the schools are doing today. My dad was a foodservice director years ago, and they did a lot of stuff from scratch. Today it has changed a lot and my feeling for that change is because they say they don’t have the labor and the time to do this stuff.”

For her part, Kilmer said the guest chef day was a great success. “It was a really great experience for the kids. It was interesting for the staff to take part and see the ‘gourmet’ side of foodservice.”

Kilmer and Wrubleski and their staffs will team up again this fall for another round of guest chef days.