Parents help staff charter school after foodservice provider backs out

By Jennifer Crain

When a school district in Oregon trimmed charter schools from its nutrition services program in 2011, The Village School came up with its own plan to create high-quality meals for students and staff.

A parent at the school and former catering professional, Toña Aguilar, penned a business plan along with another parent that centers on healthy, affordable menus made on site using a bounty of local ingredients.

Aguilar is now the foodservices coordinator and executive chef at the school. She oversees the nutrition program, which is run by five part-time kitchen staff and a team of 22 weekly parent volunteers.

The transition to an independent kitchen wasn’t easy. The school had only one summer to research, write and implement the new plan. The school also needed to raise funds to replace the serviceware and countertop appliances that were reclaimed by the district.

It was an overwhelming task, but Aguilar saw promise.

“The structure of the kitchen space was great,” she says. “A lot of schools these days aren’t set up for scratch cooking. We’re very fortunate.”

The original kitchen had ample counter space and other large appliances left in place by the district: a walk-in cooler, freezer, dishwasher, oven, stove and warmer. Through community fundraising efforts, they purchased their own stand mixer, slicer and Robot Coupe, in addition to trays, cups, bowls and silverware. Volunteers prepared the kitchen and repaired equipment to get the kitchen ready during community workdays.

The nutrition program offers one entrée and supplementary choices in the salad bar, plus side dishes that accompany some entrées. Drinks are limited to local, organic milk or water.

The menu revamp had an immediate impact.

“Our numbers doubled pretty quickly because we create delicious, nutritious, high-quality meals that children want to eat and parents feel good about purchasing,” Aguilar says.

About 70 percent of the school’s 215 students participate in the lunch program on a daily basis. A whopping 95 percent of the school’s 40 staff members eat the school lunch every day. The school offers staff free lunches through a 2013 grant from OEA Choice Trust, which promotes wellness for Oregon school employees.

More than half the students at the school qualify for free or reduced meals. Many eat breakfast at school, a simple two-item combination prepared by one staff member, such as a blueberry muffin and a hard-boiled egg or yogurt and oatmeal.

Most foods are made in house. They soak and cook dried beans, for instance, and make their own sauces and marinades. Starting at 8:30 every morning, workers staff four stations to make hot entrees, prep salad bar ingredients, dice or slice vegetables for cooked dishes and construct side dishes, such as cornbread or coleslaw.

Aguilar says a focus on simple preparation makes their menu plan work.

“Most school meal programs offer multiple entrees. We have had great success with offering just one,” Aguilar explains.

The menu is on a four-week rotation. Popular meals include stromboli; spaghetti; a sushi bowl with marinated tofu, seasoned rice and toasted nori; a sandwich bar and a rice and bean bowl with sauce from Café Yumm!, a Eugene-based franchise.

Since local ingredients are a central component of the menus, the school has nurtured relationships with local farms, food companies and distributors. The team orders staples from Hummingbird Wholesale, milk from Umpqua Dairy and cheese from Provvista. When vegetables are in season, they pick up or receive weekly orders from several small, local farms. During the offseason, they order produce from Organically Grown Co. Breads are from The Bread Stop and tortillas and salsa from De Casa Fine Foods, both local businesses.

At the beginning, they offered meat entrées twice a week. But when the price of organic local meat climbed, they cut back and re-evaluated. The program is now completely vegetarian and meets nutrition standards for the USDA National School Lunch Program by incorporating ingredients such as legumes, nuts, seeds and cheeses. Aguilar says it’s also easier to manage food safety standards since they don’t have to keep meat separate from fresh produce.

To comply with health codes in a volunteer-rich environment, the school requires kitchen volunteers attend a yearly training to obtain food handler permits.

The school moved to a new location this year, but the program is still strong, a fact that’s obvious from the enthusiastic faces of the kids.

“The students are thrilled to be eating this food,” Aguilar says. “They see us all working and they know we’re putting a lot of care and love into it.”