As the “Rethinking the Food System” project progresses, the trajectory of our outcomes become more apparent. This week, we focused heavily on revising our Wellness Policy Model that we plan to present to schools. The model outlines imperative actions surrounding food and waste reduction that we believe schools can improve on. Our goal is not to demand that schools completely adopt the policy; we wish to provide them with feasible ways to inch toward a more sustainable future for their students. More to come on this as we revise!
Although our meetings with contacts have dwindled, we were still able to meet with great people who each gave us an important perspective. We met with Lori Seier, the Food Service Director for Parkland School District, to discuss her outlook on farm-to-school programs, nutrition and recycling education at PSD, school gardens, and more. Lori gave us key information to use in our wellness model. Thank you, Lori!
We had a fantastic conversation with Katy Hunter, the Program Administrator at The Seed Farm. Katy reiterated the conenction between social justice and food, which we have come across multiple times in our project. The Seed Farm is a great resource for aspiring farmers, as they have an Apprentice Farm Program and an Incubator Program. Katy also reinforced another practice that we are noticing from local farms—that organic practices are normally required by managment even if the farm is not certified organic. Thank you, Katy!
Dr. Karen Beck Pooley, a Lehigh professor and Bethlehem School District School Board Member, gave us outstanding information for us to apply to our wellness model. Thank you, Karen!
The next few weeks will most likely look like a lot of revision, putting things together, and fine-tuning. We will be announcing a date for a Zoom presentation of our project shortly!
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