How Chesterfield County Public Schools goes straight to the source for super fresh farm-to-school summer meals

When Casey Dickinson, assistant director of food and nutrition services for Chesterfield County Public Schools in Chesterfield, Virginia, was looking at ways to expand farm-to-school initiatives at her district, she decided to go straight to the source.

“I had this great idea that I wanted to serve summer meals at a farmers market,” she shared with attendees at the School Nutrition Association's (SNA) Annual National Conference (ANC) last week in Boston. “I knew that they were farmers at the farmers market, so, if I could get to a place where there were a lot of farmers, then that would make my job and my mission of farm-to-school a lot easier.”

Dickinson got to work and what started as an idea in her head a couple years ago has turned into full-fledged summer meal site at the local farmers market.

Building a menu

Dickinson’s first step to bringing meals to the farmers market was approaching the coordinator of the market who was quickly on board with having the district set up a booth. The coordinator also reached out to the different vendors in the market to see if they would be interested in providing some of their product to use in the meals.

“She sent me a spreadsheet [of the interested vendors], so now I had all their emails and all their phone numbers and what seasonal crops they were going to have,” said Dickinson.

From there, Dickinson worked to shape the menu for each week. She turned to resources like thelunchbox.org and Team Nutrition for menu inspiration and ended up using many of their recipes.

“I really went through all these materials and just highlighted things that I thought would be fun to incorporate that may not be things that we can do across 67 schools, but I could manage in this small farmers market segment,” she said.

Fresh fruit smoothies, melon salads, Chicken Caesar wraps, and scratch-made beef tacos were just a sample of some of the dishes that were served during the first summer of the meal service.

All of the meals were prepared in the district’s central kitchen and then transported to the market via the nutrition team’s hot and cold holding van which also held the food on site while it was waiting to be served.

Keeping kids onsite

As part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) guidelines, summer meal sites that are not located in rural areas must make sure that kids eat their meals on site. Summers in Virginia can get quite hot, so Dickinson knew she would have to come up with fun activities to keep kids and parents from leaving the market.

Dickinson reached out to different non-profits and other local partners to see if they would be willing to share resources that they could use as activities for kids while they ate.

While some organizations provided resources like activity sheets, others showed up to the market themselves to host activities. During the week when honey was being featured, for example, a local beekeeper came with his bees and taught kids about honey and the insects that produce it.

To get the word out about the summer meals at the market, Dickinson worked with officials at the market and others in the district to establish a marketing campaign.

A video highlighting the meals was developed and pushed out onto the district’s social media channels. Dickinson also took every opportunity to post pictures of the meals online, making sure that the photos showcase the food in an attractive way.

“I'm not really featuring a farmer if I make their food look not great,” she said.

In addition, a poster advertising the meals and highlighting the menu that day is displayed at the market every week.

Growing participation

During their first year at the market, the nutrition team served 475 meals over the course of seven meal service days. Before the nutrition team had a presence at the market, the average participation at the market was 737 people, once the district started offering the meals each week, the average participation at the market increased to 981.

Chesterfield is back at the market again this summer and has already surpassed the number of meals served last summer.

“This year, we've only done five meal services and we've already served 930 meals, said Dickinson.  “We still have five more [meal services] to go. We're likely going to hit about 2000 meals at our farmers market site this year.”

Parents at the market this year can receive a meal for free thanks to a community donor who reached out and offered to cover the meals. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits are now being accepted by some of the vendors as well.

Dickinson is proud of how much the team has accomplished and encourages her fellow school nutrition professionals to turn their ideas into reality by reaching out to those in their community.

“Take advantage of the resources that are available and connect with your community partners,” she said. “There are so many people that also have this vision, but they don't know where to start either. And I find once you just start having those conversations that it all just kind of comes together.”