Food Trends | June 2024

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OPERATOR AWARD FINALISTS

What innovative recipe, process, practice, or technology, are you currently taking advantage of with success in your program?

The School District of Greenville County Greenville, South Carolina

The School District of Lee County Fort Myers, Florida

Let’s talk about one of the most amazing programs available in Greenville County School District, Connections Café Employ- ability Credentials Program located at Roper Mountain Science Center! We have 24-27 students from High School Special Education class- es come into our intensive Culinary Training program that allows them to earn Employability Credentials that go towards their diploma. These students working towards their Employability Credentials, spend nine weeks at a time at the Connections Cafe kitchen under the leadership of the amazing manager, Amanda Perez and her team. They learn all kinds of culinary skills, rang- ing from proper food safety and sanitation to food preparation and customer service. We even prepare them for the ServSafe test throughout the internship, the students can then take the ServSafe exam up to two times and it is completely covered by the Food and Nutrition Department. It is obviously amazing that the students can walk away from this program and be competitively employable, but it is truly a won- derful thing to watch the students come into our program being shy or unsure of themselves in their skills, and see them progress through the program to become confident, employable adults! We have had 18 students from the special education department that have gone on to find full-time or part-time employment. This pro- gram is not only life-changing for the students, but for everybody involved!

The mission of the Healthy Living Collaboration is to improve overall health and increase food security for The School District of Lee County students and families. We promote healthy minds and bodies by linking multisensory, cross-curricular academics with school gardens, cafeteria menus, nutrition classes, mental health education, industry certification, college & career readi- ness, and community outreach. The Healthy Living Collaboration is comprised of 4 district depart- ments - Comprehensive Health Education; Environmental Educa- tion; Food & Nutrition Services; and Career & Technical Education. We currently have 10 schools fully participating in the Farm to School Program, growing produce at their school and serving it in the cafeterias. There are approximately 1,200 students actively participating in F2S courses managing their school gardens. Our goal is to develop a system that can be duplicated and allow partic- ipants to become mentors to future schools/students. With the assistance of our Food & Nutrition Services Assistant Man- ager of School Gardens, we have served over 17,000 lbs of produce in school cafeterias over the past two school years. We were also recognized by the University of Florida and included in their annual SNAP-ED Impact report in both 2022 and 2023. In addition to students growing and harvesting in the gardens, we involve students of many disciplines. Our digital media students designed our Healthy Living Collaboration logo. When students at a local high school struggled to power their hydroponic gardening system, their fellow engineering students stepped in to help. The engineering class designed and built a compact solar solution. A Biology students were then able to grow and harvest lettuce, rad- ishes, tomatoes, and peppers from the towers and deliver to their school’s cafeteria.