LEARNING FROM OTHERS: INNOVATION, INSIGHT, AND IDEAS FROM INDUSTRY LEADERS
USFA trains the trainers at the CIA in San Antonio, TX
https://youtu.be/FowXBH8hlkU
In May of this year the NxtGen Network production team was invited to join the Urban School Food Alliance (USFA) on the campus of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in San Antonio, TX. Members of the USFA school districts came together for intensive classroom and kitchen training to learn from experts in the culinary field. The event was planned and executed by the USFA Executive Director, Dr. Katie Wilson, SNS, and her team. Over the course of five days attendees received training from CIA instructors, along with Chef Samantha Gasbarro, SNS from Healthy School Recipes and Culinary Trainer Cathy Powers, MS, RDN, LD from Culinary Nutrition Associates. Dr.Wilson shared,“Serving high-quality,good food is the goal of every school nutrition professional across the country,” and went on to share that “the theme and emphasis for this week is to participate in a training program that shows not only culinary training skills, but also how to use those skills when increasing plant-based menu items.”
Creating a training that was tailored specifically to K12 culinary needs was crucial to the USFA. In the above video, an attendee, Anthony Gomez III, a Foodservice Training Specialist from LA Unified School District spoke about why he felt this training was important for his role in the district. “Being here (at the training) we are just really hoping to get these basic skills, that a lot of people you would think would have in the kitchen but don’t actually, you know, have it and don’t have the confidence - so to carry this back to our school districts and empower everybody on our staff to create that buy-in to get back to the quality of food we want to go and serve our students.” Seeing the passion, excitement, and commitment to the training that each of the attendees and leaders shared during our two days at the CIA was more then enough to convince the NxtGen Network team that this was news worthy - and we may have even learned a few skills ourselves! Visit UrbanSchoolFoodAlliance.com for more info.
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