SmartTranscript of Senate Education 2025-02-12 2:00PM

[Chair Seth Bongartz]: You are live. Okay. This is the senate education committee on February twelfth at two o'clock after a, like, three minute break. And we're here now to hear Betsy Rosenblum. Oh, On from the school early education early childhood awareness day. K. Yeah. You're on. So, actually, you don't know people on the table, do you? All [Member Terry Williams]: of us. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Many familiar faces. Well, we'll [Chair Seth Bongartz]: go around the table and introduce ourselves. We we start over here with [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Oh, senator. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Dave Wicks serving well. Seth Longard, FedEx and District. [Member Terry Williams]: Terry Williams serving well. [Member Steven Heffernan]: How are you? Steve Hepburn, and his. Great. And then [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: And my name is Betsy Rosenbluth. I am the farm to school director at Shelburne Farms, but also part of a large network of the farm to school and early childhood network. And we are here with farm to school awareness day to let you know the impacts of Vermont's investment in farm to school in our early childhood. And we have a few folks, hopefully, will be on Zoom testifying as well and some folks in person today. No one's in yet, but I'm ready to let them in [Speaker 5 ]: Okay. When they arrive. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Okay. Okay. So we are here today to ask you to support the Vermont Farm to School in early childhood grant program and the local food incentive for schools with level funded base appropriations of five hundred thousand dollars for each program, which is in the governor's recommend. Every Vermonter should have access to the nourishing food that we produce in this state, and every child should have that nourishing food on their lunch tray so that while we address readiness to burn and food insecurity, we are also building lifelong skills for better health and helping our Vermont farmers and the agricultural economy. That's the win win win win of Farm to School. So thank you for having us here today, to share, our stories about the impact of this work on our students and our communities and our farmers. And what makes, I think, the Vermont Farm to School program unique is the integration of food access with local food purchasing and agriculture and food education. And we do this by connecting classrooms, the cafeteria, and communities and local farms. So we call it the three c model of change, classroom, cafeteria, community connections. And, yeah, I just wanna know from so many students, almost half of their daily nutrition comes from school meals. So it's really a critical opportunity to feed kids, but also to connect them both with the community and, with the source of our food. So Vermont has invested in three key programs to improve student health and learning, as well as benefiting our farmers. So first is the Rose over Laughlin Farm to School grant program that started in two thousand six and has since served over three hundred schools in early childhood programs in every county of the state. And we'll hear from the agency of agriculture today the impact of that program. Second is the local food incentive program that supports local purchasing so that more of the about twenty five million dollars that Vermont schools spend on food every year, those dollars can stay with our Vermont farmers and with our Vermont economy. And over right now, about two thirds of school food authorities are engaging with the local food incentive. So we're excited about that. And, those schools, just last year's grantees from local food incentive reported spending about one point two million dollars on local foods. So it's working. We definitely want the last third of Vermont schools participating as well, and we're working towards that. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Well, let me do. What is that what might be the reason that they're not? [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: I think there's been a little bit slower uptake with some of the food management companies. It's a little trickier to get the contracts to a place where that kind of applying works. There are some of the under resourced schools that just need a little more trying to do a lot of technical assistance to help them. And I can ask my colleague, Gina, as well for some of her thoughts. But there are over a hundred farms in Vermont right now that are selling to either schools or and or early childhood programs. So it's a it's been seriously a growing movement, and we are looked at nationally as leaders, in what we're trying to do here. And the third program, which we're not gonna talk about today, but is really integral to this, our universal school meals, which ensures equitable access to school meals for every student. And since we're as I mentioned, so many students receive about half their daily calories from school meals, We know it's essential for their health and for their learning and for their success to be accessing nourishing meals, but what's better than fresh Vermont products in those meals? So the three programs, you might have heard us talk about a virtuous cycle. It gives a little it's on the back of one of your handouts that looks better than mine in black and white. That just describes that by they worked The three programs work together as a virtuous cycle of farm to school and universal meals that increases student participation in school meals, which improves revenues in the meal program, which gives them more power to do more local purchasing, which again leads to more scratch cooked meals and participation and that positive cycle just reinforces. And you'll hear from one of our food service directors today. He could talk some more about the details how that works. So by integrating food access, food education, and local purchasing in schools, we are providing our children critical nutrition and they're understanding what that food does for their own health, but also the health of their communities and our farmers. And they're building healthy habits and the connections for Vermont Foods, we hope, for their lifetime. And we have some great anecdotal stories of of students growing up from Vermont with farm to school and it stays with them. We're just hearing some fifth graders from Champlain Elementary talk about asking in the cafeteria who was behind me in the line upstairs at lunch, asking the server whether that was what kind of cheddar was on the line and everything. You know, cabbage cheddar. And it was like, was that h cheddar? [Member Steven Heffernan]: Was that Mohammed? [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Alright. So we're again, we're finally, we're looking for your support of level based funding for both the local food incentive at five hundred thousand dollars and for the farm to school and early childhood grants program at five hundred thousand. Thank you so much. Go ahead and ask here today, and I'm happy to answer any questions. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Okay. Senator Fuchs. Thank you. [Speaker 6 ]: So with with universal school meals, essentially, between the federal government and state government, we're we're we're buying the food. Is this now boiling down to simply the choice of where the food is sourced from, and why does it cost why does it cost more to to direct for local purchasing versus syndicate? Right. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Okay. Yeah. I'll try to break out a couple of responses to that. It sometimes, in season, there is no cost difference. But often, you're getting raw fresh product not already packaged, and it could be a little more labor to actually process that. It's a little more I mean, again, the agency of agriculture can talk a little bit about what we're doing to get that food to the loading dock, but sometimes it's a little more work to get that food delivered. It's not from the one broad line distributor. So we're using food hubs, you know, sometimes direct relationships with farmers. So it isn't always more expensive, but it is a little more work. And it can be certainly you know, it's seasonal. Everybody's been very creative about purchasing seasonally in the winter and more and more across Vermont. There's more Vermont beef being purchased that's local. There's a project to get local grains, and it's cheaper than commodity food that's being subsidized elsewhere that they can get, you know, sometimes, and we're looking to replace those products. I don't know if that helped answer your question on cost. Not entirely. Yep. Okay. It's too bad. Yeah. [Member Steven Heffernan]: It's too bad. They were at BAG this morning. They gave a really good presentation on but it's because it cost us more to produce in Vermont than it does, you know, from a a worldwide distributor that they have, you know, that they have bigger farms and access. I don't think they were able to [Speaker 7 ]: tell us that the the the margin of difference, though. If it [Speaker 5 ]: is about ten percent or is it twenty five? [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: I don't have that exact number. But and I will say the program doesn't reimburse for, schools for buying local. It provides an incentive that then encourages them to do that extra work to change the system they have to be a system that buys Vermont. And so the incentive is working. The, agency of education, child nutrition program testified this morning that for the dollars that are being supplied through a local food incentive brand, It's three to one that are being leveraged that schools are spending on local food. So it isn't a reimbursement, but it's truly an incentive to change that system that's just gone basically towards efficiency, which is good, but it leaves out the fact that we want the dollars to stay in the Vermont economy. Okay. Better food. Yeah. Yes. So we need to move on because I see we have [Chair Seth Bongartz]: a long list here. Yeah. Of people. You have to get so we have by the way, we have six people to do to get through the next fifteen minutes, so we probably ought to think about, you know, five or six minutes each just to make sure you all get a chance. So thank you. Next on the list is Sabrina McDonough from the Shrewsbury Mountain School. So introduce yourself. Say hello. [Sabrina McDonough (Witness)]: So good afternoon. My name is Sabrina McDonough, and I am a fifth and sixth grade teacher at Shrewsbury Mountain School in Shrewsbury, Vermont. I'm here in support of the farm to school and early childhood grant programs and ask that you could continue to support these programs with level funding of five hundred thousand dollars for the fiscal year of twenty twenty six. Additionally, please continue to support the local food incentive programs for schools at the five hundred thousand level funding base appropriation. These grant programs have helped our school create systems and structures, which provide children with opportunities to connect directly with the food that they eat while also building relationships with community members. Previously, our school garden was only used by one or two classes funding from the farm to school grant allowed us to make changes to the structure of the garden so that each classroom has its own bed, as well as adding fencing that created a more viable garden that could be used as an outdoor classroom space, which all teachers can access. This work has allowed more students direct experience with the garden while also promoting working relationships with local farmers and our local agricultural organization Sage. As we plan, prepare and plant our beds, not only do the students enjoy the experience of working outdoors and growing their own food, they are able to make connections with other curricular content, whether it is determining the volume and cost of soil for the raised beds or observing pollinators at work. These experiences are further enhanced by using the harvest from the garden one cooking. Through the grant funds, we were able to purchase and stock two cooking carts, which each class uses to create dishes from Vermont's harvest of the month program, sampling local produce and new and interesting recipes. Recently, our third and fourth graders cooked lemon herb roasted beets while my own students prepared sweet potato tater tots. Perhaps the event that best highlights students connection to the garden and their willingness to try new foods is our harvest festival where each class prepares a dish for the rest of the school to sample. This year, my class created an eggplant curry, a new tasting experience for most. This celebration of our work gives us the chance to gather as a community, recognizing the rules we all play in tending the garden. Along with our efforts for redesigning the garden, the farm to school grant allowed us to plant a small orchard and implement a composting program. Two years ago, all students from pre kindergarten to sixth grade worked with staff from retreus to prepare the ground and plant several fruit trees on our campus. The children were amazed at the longevity of the pro of this project, noting that many of them will be attending our local and middle and high school when we harvest the first fruits. This has not stopped them from appreciating the endeavor. And in fact, we have dedicated tree stewards in our third and fourth grade students. Comp composting is the most recent system that we have adopted. Just as we have stewards for the trees, my fifth and sixth graders have become the leaders of composting. Grant funds allowed us to construct a shed and secure bins that will be a part of the school for years to come. I now turn this over to my students to share their thoughts. Thank you. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Hi. My name is Quinn, and I'm in fifth grade at Shrewsbury Mountain School. When I was in third grade, my school planted trees to create an orchard on a part of our playground. When I helped plant the trees, it brought our school together as a community. It helped me learn the process of planting trees and taking care of them too. We mulched the trees as well as digging out the snow around the trunks in winter to keep mice from ringing the young trees. Now I'm in fifth grade. Our new third and fourth graders take care of the orchard, which in years to come will give us apples, pears, and peaches for snacks and cooking. Thank you for your time. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Hi. My name is Makayla Vater, and I am in sixth grade at the Shrewsbury Mountain School. Today, I'm going to be talking about our garden and why school should be able [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: to have one. All of [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: the all of the plants we have in the garden, we use for cooking and making dishes for the class or to support the pollinators. In the first and sixth grade class, we help out in our garden by taking care of the weeds and putting mulch down so we can plant more things. I think that the garden is a way that that can bring the community together because we all have to work together to make sure that the garden is healthy. One thing I have thought about the garden is that we all have a part in taking care of it, so I think that it brings some responsibility to your actions. We even have an eco friendly decomposition system. When we have scraps of food at lunch or snack, we have a compost bin that we take out to our decomposition system where we turn our compost into fertilizer for the garden so that the food doesn't just go to a landfill and damage the environment even more. Thank you for your time. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Hello. My name is Donna McGowan, and my name is Ellie McDevitt. We are in sixth grade, and we go to Cheesebury Mountain School. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: We are here to talk about the composting system in our school and why we think you should support programs like this. Our fifth [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: and sixth grade classrooms started using the composting system this October, and it has helped us learn more about systems in our environment in ways that we wouldn't be able to learn in a classroom. Composting has helped us better understand the process of food and matter breaking down in an [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: ecosystem. Twice a week, three of the students in our class go out to our composting shed with a volunteer. We use a recipe, which includes food scraps and other materials to make sure that our compost is healthy. We also gather data to monitor and observe the health of our compost pile. Recently, we have noticed that the compost temperature has risen almost forty degrees Fahrenheit, which shows that it is starting to become active. On days that our school does not compost on-site, the leftover food supports a local farm that raises pigs. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: It is important to keep this program and others like it going because it helps us learn more about how to protect the environment so that kids in the future can have the same opportunities that we have. Kids at our school volunteer and enjoy this enjoy this activity because they want to learn more about how composting can help our school and local communities as well as the planet as a whole. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: It was good for us to have these opportunities to use our resources better and use the compost to enrich the soil of our garden rather than buying new soil and putting food scraps into a landfill. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: We have had this opportunity to learn as well as interact with community members. Kids in the future at Shrewsbury as well as other schools around Vermont deserve to have this chance as well. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Thank you for your time. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thanks to all of you. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Thank you. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: That was helpful, and it's clear that they enjoy what what you're helping them do. [Sabrina McDonough (Witness)]: So Did you have any questions for us? [Chair Seth Bongartz]: We bet it's probably almost I hate to say it, but it's almost as slow if we don't because we have to get through so many people. But that was really nice. Thank you very much. Thanks. [Sabrina McDonough (Witness)]: Thank you very much. Thanks. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So next is Reeve Bassam. Is that right? [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Hi. Reeve Bassam. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Bassam. Bassam. And I'll let you introduce yourself. Tell us why you're here. [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Great. Can you all hear me okay? [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Okay. My name is Reeve Bassam. I live in Glover, and I work in Hardwick as the place based education coordinator at the Center for an Agricultural Economy. And in that role, I partner closely with the schools in the Orleans Southwest Supervisory Union. I'm also a member of the Vermont Farm to School and Early Childhood Network. And I just wanna thank you all for your time and attention today. I the farm to school and early childhood grants and the local food incentive have such significant positive impact across the state and I urge you to please support the level funding for both of these programs at five hundred thousand dollars each. Today, I'm at Hazen Union School where I co facilitate a class called a recipe for human connection. And I'm with well, it was going to be two students. One of them is sick at home today. So I'm here with one student that you have testimony from both in your written materials. And they're both students who are part of the recipe for human connection class, which is a class that is currently being supported through funding from the farm to school vision grant. And it's a class that explores how food helps us connect and build community. Through shared recipes, harvesting, cooking, farm field trips, and community meals, the class creates a space for students to grow their collaboration and communication skills, develop shared vision, build relationships and belonging across difference, and offer something meaningful and tangible to the community. When a beloved community meal that had existed in Hardwick for decades was shuttered during the pandemic, Hazen students were instrumental in bringing it back. Now each month at the Hardwick Community Lunch, Recipe for Human Connection students prepare a hearty, delicious, free meal featuring local ingredients and serving over one hundred people. This intergenerational, challenging, and highly rewarding undertaking brings people together from across the community, engaging students directly in local food systems, social resilience, and community food security. And you are all invited to come anytime to the community lunch. It's every third Thursday of the month, from noon to one PM at the United Church of Hardwick, and it happens all year long even during the summer. So please stop by if you're hungry on a third Thursday and you happen to be in the kingdom. The farm to school and early childhood programs provide key support for this class, as well as so many other valuable projects and innovative programs across the state. These programs are helping students and communities flourish. Please support the level funding of both the farm to school and early childhood grants and the local food incentive program. Thank you so much for listening, and I'm now going to turn it over to Ginger who is a student from the recipe for human connection class who's here with me. [Ginger Vallee (Student Witness)]: My name is Ginger Valley. I'm from Greensboro, Vermont, and I'm in eleventh grade at Hazen. Recipe for human connection class has been really important to me. In seventh and eighth grade, I didn't talk to anyone. But in ninth grade, I joined recipe for human connection class and helped me become more social and build confidence. I really love the community meal. At the community meal, we are there all day long cooking and working together, and we have to communicate really well to make it happen. When we serve food, we're socializing with the people we are serving to, so that really helps with communication. There are times when we have little dance parties while we are cooking, so it's very joyful. We also had the opportunity to interview people at the mail and write an article for the Harvard Gazette. I had never thought of myself as a journalist before, and it was it was fun to get feedback from people and share about our experiences from the community. And thank you for listening, and I hope you continue to fund for the farm to school programs. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: We do have time because you two were fairly quick, so we have time here. But if somebody has one, here [Member Terry Williams]: we go. Seven a week. So the two five hundred thousand dollar asset, how is that equally distributed among schools? Is it all schools in the state to get that? [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Yes. Well, we're we're gonna have the two agency representatives shortly speak to that. But the both those programs are available to any school in the state. And and the reach has been especially with the grants program that's been around longer, every county in the state has schools in every county have received grant funds. [Member Terry Williams]: K. Thank you. [Member Steven Heffernan]: So in your program, as you're doing it, during this time of the year, it must [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: be a little tougher to [Member Steven Heffernan]: find the vegetables and stuff you do, or or or what do you use? More potatoes and stuff that's been refrigerated? [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Is that a question for us? [Member Steven Heffernan]: Yes. Yes. [Vice Chair David Weeks]: We you know, it's it's it's a fun process trying to figure out what kind of meal is doable for such a large group, you know, community meal where we're serving a hundred people and and some of those are deliveries to folks who can't get out, can't leave home. So it it has to be something we can package up as well. And we so we have a mix of using things that are local and fresh and then other ingredients. That may not be quite as seasonal, but we we have access to some really wonderful partners who help us provide donations and local produce and we you know, during the, during the fall, we made an incredible carrot ginger soup because we had so many good carrots coming right from the Hayes and greenhouse. There's wonderful, cabbage and carrot shred that we get from the CAE's just cut veggie program that we usually use to make a big salad or coleslaw. And we have Pete's Greens up in our area too, and that's another frequent source. But we also do a lot of our shopping very locally at the co op and other businesses that that feature local products. So we can get we can get those products through some of those other local businesses as well. [Member Steven Heffernan]: So you use as much local as you can, but it doesn't mean we're always getting local. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Correct. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So, Rita, I wanna ask your student one question. It sounds like you put in a lot of time on those Thursdays and probably the prep ahead of time. What what motivates you to do that? Why why do you put in all the work? [Ginger Vallee (Student Witness)]: Because it's just nice to be able to, like, do stuff for the community and just, like, help out. So, like, knowing that you're helping, like, give meals out to the community, like, motivates you to help, like, prepare and everything. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: That's great. That's what we [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Can I also add that the reason why we do the community meal is because students advocated to include that as part of our class? So we've we actually redesigned the class to incorporate that project based on students having experienced the meal and wanting to be a part of it. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: That's great. Thank you. I might I might have [Member Steven Heffernan]: missed this. That is it the whole is it eleventh grade, you said? Or who which [Vice Chair David Weeks]: It's, it's open to students in all of the high school grades. [Member Steven Heffernan]: And how many participants do you roughly get to do that? [Vice Chair David Weeks]: So the class right now, we're running two two sections, which meet they they both meet every day, and there's about twelve kids in each group. And, usually, it's between six and ten kids who who help out with each month's meal. So we kind of rotate through the so that everybody has a chance to help out as often as possible with that meal. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you so much, and thanks for everything you're doing, [Member Terry Williams]: both of you. [Vice Chair David Weeks]: Good to be with you. [Speaker 5 ]: Okay. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Next, we have Bob Billerbrand. He will be here soon. Okay. So we'll skip him for a minute, then pick up when he's here. Gina? Yeah. Yeah. So introduce yourself. Tell us why you're here and what you're doing. [Member Terry Williams]: Sure thing. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: What's your connection is? [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Hi, everyone. I'm Gina Clitherow. I use sheher pronouns. I'm with the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food, and Markets. I'm our farm to institution program manager. And I'm here to talk about the agency's Farm to School Early Childhood Grant Program, which Reeve and Sabrina both spoke about the impacts that you can see in real life, but this is in an in paper form and numbers. So I'd like to pass these around. You should also have the digital you may have digital copy available that I sent a quick email. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: So Do all the apps. Oh, [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: well, this this version is formatted, really beautifully. Okay. Great. So the Farm to School of Early Childhood Grants program, as I believe Betsy mentioned, started in two thousand and six. So the first it happened two thousand seven with the two thousand six passage of the Loeys McLaughlin Farm to School Act, and that charged the agency with providing grants to schools and early childcare programs and nonprofit service providers to support farm to school education across the state. So the focus of these funds, which is listed in the statute as well as described in the report, is to improve the health, nutrition, and learning outcomes for students and children, to integrate interdisciplinary agricultural education into Vermont classrooms, to connect kids and families with the their local community and their local agricultural community in particular, and to strengthen markets for Vermont grown and produced products. Since two thousand six, over three hundred grants have been awarded totaling over two point three million dollars and these grants have reached a hundred and sixty early childcare programs and a hundred fifty over a hundred fifty eight schools. In this most recent fiscal year, which is the focus of the report, I, that I provided here is, there were seventy three grants awarded. And to address your question, senator Williams, yes. Grants have reached every county in the state. And in this past year of grant funding, we reached all all but two in FY twenty four. It looks like Grand Isle and Essex did not get any grants this year, but they are open to all. [Member Terry Williams]: So how's that how's that coming through the county? How does that have a government? Is there a [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: It's the schools. It's individual schools and childcare programs applied and nonprofits. Yeah. Mhmm. So within [Chair Seth Bongartz]: It's gonna be. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Okay. So this is through this one five hundred thousand dollar bucket, we break it out into three different grant programs to help meet the unique needs of schools of and early childcare programs of different scales. And so we offer the capacity building grant, which is kind of the flagship funding opportunity. It involves both grant money and also access to technical assistance and coaching to support schools and and reaching their farm to school goals and really building and sustaining robust farm to school programs that last, you know, far beyond whether, you know, one passionate teacher has to retire, that kind of thing. And then we have the vision grant program, which supports larger projects, up to fifty thousand dollars, that promote youth leadership and community engagement. And, Reed's team at the Center for Agricultural Economy was awarded a vision grant to do their work in partnership with, the local community meals. And then the vision grant is our third grant program, and that one is really gonna record small family child care programs and, early education programs and after school programs to directly reimburse them for purchasing a CSA, connecting with their local farmer. And so each year, the agency assesses these three programs and adjust our offerings to best meet the needs of the educational community. So far in we are now in fiscal year twenty five and so far eight, capacity building grants were awarded this year, and those projects are just about to get off the ground in March. And we have another funding opportunity opening in at the end of February, which is the vision grant program. So those applications are gonna be opening soon. We're really excited to see what we get. We are pausing the CSA grant for f y twenty five, which was a really difficult decision that the agency had to make. We received a one time grant from USDA for the local food for schools and childcare program. It's a one point two million dollar award, and we are going to use that in funding to reach, hopefully, all two hundred and thirty eligible early childcare programs, in addition to, all school food authorities in Vermont. And for more information on, that USDA grant program and also some other work that the agency has done for our institution space, such as our work with fractions and our work, on dairy education. You can flip to the last couple of pages in the report. Those are not directly funded with perspective this Rosenblatt Act that we're talking about here, but are just important context about what's been happening in the farm to school landscape in the past year. So, yeah, this grant report kind of gives an overview of the program and what we've been up to. And I'm here to happy to answer any questions you might have. [Member Terry Williams]: So so back to my original question, I was looking at your We do. Capacity grant. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yep. [Member Terry Williams]: What what county is now on there? Right. And the the CSA grant. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Mhmm. [Member Terry Williams]: The Parent Child Center, I think, is involved in. How so how are we making sure that everybody knows about the grant and that they're every school that wants to get a chance to participate? [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Yeah. It's definitely something that we are actively trying to work on. It's building more relationships with within we're really leveraging the Farm to School network as a tool to reach a lot of these schools. Mhmm. And there's been additional resources to support building up the farm to school support, especially in Rutland County and also Bennington County, which they actually they their early child early childhood community Bennington is doing great, but it's got k twelve Bennington schools are not as actively involved in farm to school and same with Rutland County. So those are areas that we know we are not seeing a lot of grant money going to, but we know that there are a lot of farms there. And so we are trying to build up our, the network's engagement there. There have been a couple of regional gatherings supported by the farm to school network trying to help connect those schools to the resources available at the state level. But we also do outreach about the grant program through a variety of methods, including listservs, putting it out through the agency's communication channels. But, yeah, we're always and do lots of, like, partner listservs, but we're always trying to expand the reach. So happy to hear any ideas you might have as well. [Member Terry Williams]: Well, I don't know if I they they used to be, you know, certified. And I I couldn't I couldn't sell the veterans. I didn't have a market for it. So I've sometime, I'll come in and talk to the ag committee about what we really need is some kind of cooperative where people that have vegetables that have to go over programs like this Yeah. Can actually sell to sell to the cooperative. [Sabrina McDonough (Witness)]: Right. [Member Terry Williams]: And now everybody I have ten acres of vegetables in corporations. Mhmm. And they basically you know, in a property, you wouldn't get to grow you could grow everything you wanted to, but they wouldn't necessarily agree to buy everything you have. But so [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Yeah. There's the I don't think we have anyone testifying from the food hubs in this committee right now, but the Vermont Food Hub network has done an amazing job at being that intermediary connecting Yep. Farms and schools. And so, yeah, I think there's been a lot of growth in that area, especially in the last few years. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Sure. Thank you. Seven [Member Terry Williams]: weeks. Thank you. Do you do [Speaker 6 ]: you have more applicants than you do resources? [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: We do. We have. So How [Member Terry Williams]: do you prioritize? [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: We all of our grants go through a competitive review process involving in like, folks from the agency as well as partners to review and score them. And, yeah, and we'd make a decision based on the which applications are really gonna be strongest and most successful content. And [Speaker 6 ]: do you you try to rotate schools so year to year, they're different, or is it programmed to kinda kick start a program? Say, you take Mountain School in Shrewsbury. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Right. [Speaker 6 ]: You give them a grant one year. They kinda self perpetuate for a four year. Is that the concept? [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: It's a good question and one that I think we're still kind of trying to figure out. We have we we don't allow schools that have, like, an active capacity building grant to reapply while they're still kind of, like, underway because they're here and a half long grant projects. But we have had programs that come back and apply, like, two years later and get funded again. Most recently, in this last batch of app of grant recipients that we've awarded for f y twenty five, we have a school that has received a capacity building grant before. But this year, they're actually focused on supporting other early childhood educators in their community. So they are just kind of, like, actively scaling out, and we've talked about adding that in as another kind of incentive for these these programs that have gotten a lot of traction and are real don't have do have buy in now from the administration and from the food service. They're a pretty solid program, but they wanna do more. We're trying to figure out what that what we're gonna ask for them that's different, and maybe it is asking them to partner with other schools and share some of their knowledge and processes with them. [Speaker 5 ]: Good. Thank you. Yeah. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: Alright. Thanks so much for [Member Steven Heffernan]: your time. No worries, So Yes. [Student at Shrewsbury Mountain School (Witness)]: You do. My contact information is on the back. Yes. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: It's okay. Yeah. Alright. Then it's Connor. Good afternoon. For the record, my [Speaker 5 ]: name is Connor Floyd, the grant programs manager at the Agency of Education, and I administer the local foods incentive. But before jumping into that, just to touch a little bit more on what Gina had mentioned. So we have identified that that bank in the Rutland Corridor is kind of a a a spot with less activity or at least, access to fewer, state resources. And so the Agency of Education received a a farm to school grant from USDA a couple of years ago to this point, and we use that money to contract with a couple of different nonprofit partners to mainly support the local foods incentive, provide resources to food service directors, some backbone support to our local foods list. But we did specifically call out Bennington and Broadland County. And so there are funds going to making connections there. There's some additional money for kinda like networking events pulled together. Like I said, it's not like there isn't stuff happening there. It's just maybe that there isn't as clear coordination or for whatever reason, they're not accessing those resources. So I was recently meeting with the Vermont Farmers Food Center, and they mentioned that it feels like there's a a renewed interest there. So we are excited to hopefully see more happening in that region. But so talking about the local foods incentive, I'll provide a brief overview of the program and then jump into some key highlights from this year. So Local Foods Incentive is has another five hundred thousand dollar appropriation. That's the grant program is essentially split into two different tracks. So there's that baseline year grant, which is intended to be an on ramp for school food authorities when they're engaging with the program for the very first time. To receive a grant award for that first year, you submit a pretty basic application. There's the intention is to have have schools thinking about what do we need to do to shift our purchasing away from, you know, national products and focusing more on Vermont produce. Once the application is approved, they the school will receive a fifteen cents per lunch grant award. There's no purchasing requirement for that baseline year grant. Once you receive that grant, any year thereafter, the School Food Authority is eligible to apply for a subsequent year grant, and that's when we're checking their purchasing and ensuring that they're getting fifteen percent local at least. There's three grant tiers. There's fifteen percent, twenty percent, twenty five percent, and the grant awards scale as well, fifteen cents per lunch, twenty cents, twenty five, twenty five cents. Roughly speaking, we're looking at, like, around thirty thousand dollar annual grant awards. Again, it totally depends on how many lunches they're serving and what tier they hit. But just thinking about what a grant looks like, broadly speaking, twenty to thirty thousand dollars. So Yeah. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Can I ask a Sorry, Mike? [Speaker 7 ]: Question about the fifteen percent? I was wondering why you landed on that number and why you can't make it higher to [Speaker 5 ]: Like, why can't it go up to thirty percent at thirty five percent? Yes. So I I wasn't a part of the conversations when the grant program was inactive, right, written. I think I don't know, Betsy, if you have any historical I don't know if I just know, like, kind of the right kind of threshold. What I can say is we have last year, we had one school for School Food Authority that exceeded thirty percent. So if there was a thirty percent tier, they would have received a higher grant award. But right now, we're we're seeing that it's very difficult to get fifteen percent, and we're not we didn't have any this year that exceeded twenty five percent. Oh, that's good. Yeah. No. Good question. And, hopefully, that does become more of a problem. Right? That means we're being successful with the grant program. And, finally, just thinking when we're talking about local, that means a lot of different things to different people. For this program, that means Vermont local. That's a definition that the agency of agriculture has. So it's gotta be Vermont local products in order for it to qualify. So now jumping into some key takeaways from this year. We did we sent along an annual report about a week or so ago, and so that should be available online. And I'll cover the four kinda key points, but that report also has detailed data tables if you wanna dig into any specific school food authority, see their lunches served, the grant awards, all those kinds of things. But, really, I there's four key points that I wanted to highlight here. The first is that we had a doubling in our subsequent year grantees this year. So last year, six school food authorities were able to hit fifteen percent local purchasing. This year, we had twelve. It's a really encouraging jump just in terms of engagement, But there's a lot of hard work from those school food authorities to ship their purchases. Six new ones? Six there's so there's some shifting. I don't know off the top of my head. I think some from last year fell off, and so there's, you know, there's always a little bit, especially around fifteen percent tier. Some make it one year, then don't, for whatever reason, the next. But a lot of new ones this year, and I think we've also seen there's a pretty good mix in terms of pre reduced percentages, of those school food authorities, which just shows there's a more economically diverse school food authorities that are able to access this, which is encouraging because that's one concern we had, in the first couple of years. The second point is that one third of the eligible school food authorities haven't engaged at all. Right? So about twenty school food authorities haven't applied for that baseline year grant, which is really a it's a low bar to be able to receive that initial grant award. What we hear when we do talk to those school food authorities is they're nervous about committing to needing to find more local purchasing later on down the road, which there is no commitment. Right? You can get that initial grant award and then not engage with the program if you so choose. We try to message that as maybe if this is gonna kick start a program. Each year, a couple more school food authorities receive a baseline year grant. We had six new ones this year, so I think that number will continue to tick down. On the flip side, that means that two thirds of all school food authorities in the state have engaged in some way with this grant program. Next, in kind of thinking about those baseline year grants, every year up until now, the grant awards have gone down. Right? So we started at, like, four hundred and eighty thousand dollars that first year that went out the door, and it was a little bit less and a little bit less. The reason behind that was that fewer school food authorities were eligible for that baseline year grant, which was much easier to receive. Right? Once you hit that, you get that first year grant, you need to actually start doing that fifteen percent local purchasing, which is not easy. And so it's exciting this year to see it go back up. Right? And so we kinda flipped that that curve, and we're seeing, I think, with more engagement going from six to twelve subsequent year grantees. Yeah. Those grant requests continue and getting increased. And so three hundred eighty four thousand eight hundred and eighteen dollars is what we awarded this year in grant funds through this program, full subsequent year and baseline year grants. And then finally, generally speaking, what we're seeing is that for every one dollar in grant funds that goes to those subsequent year grantees, those that are required to at least do fifteen percent local purchasing, that one dollar in grant funding reflects about three dollars in local purchasing that that program is doing. So there's that kind of one to three, you know, return on investment that we're seeing. Just as the data emerges, that seems to be pretty consistent here on here at this point. So I'll leave it there, but I'm happy to answer any questions folks may have. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Sorry, miss. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: No. No. I was just some [Member Terry Williams]: of the. Well, you're coughing now. [Speaker 6 ]: So I do remember this conversation from last year or the year before, and I remember that part of the conversation revolve around schools changing their processes to access local food. So every school was trying to kinda figure out the system on how to do it, who to contact. Seemed like a lot of repetition. And the conversation at the time was, well, why not incentivize the local food distributors to do exactly what you're doing so that the school just reaches out to the same provider, but the provider gets incentivized for doing fifteen percent or twenty percent or something like that. And then the distribution system begins to kind of fall in line with the intent, which the intent is to use more local foods as opposed to wherever foods. But it doesn't seem like that tactic is I don't know. [Member Terry Williams]: And the farmers can use that local source too. [Speaker 5 ]: So are you saying, like, a a the like, a distributor would be the one that would Yeah. [Speaker 6 ]: The distributor gets incentivized for increasing the volume of locally produced food and distributed it into the system as opposed to each individual school [Member Terry Williams]: trying to figure out how [Speaker 6 ]: to do that. And then, you know, so they're contacting the bulk provider Mhmm. As they were in the past, and they're they're contacting a variety potentially a variety of farmers and what food providers just seems a lot more efficient than you just incentivize the food distributors. So [Speaker 5 ]: I see. [Speaker 6 ]: We'll give you an incentive. [Speaker 5 ]: Right. Without speaking to the merits of that kind of approach, I think what currently is happening is that the the regional food hubs, and so we have a a pretty good network of food hubs in Vermont, are filling that that role and filling that gap. And so it the vast majority, I I look at a lot of the backup documentation to make sure, okay, it's full of fifteen percent and to look at all the purchases that you did to to verify that. And a a small little bit is actually like, oh, I bought potatoes from this farm down the road. The vast majority is already either coming from the broad line distributor in Vermont's, right, performance food service group. So a lot of purchasing is coming from them. Local purchasing is coming from them as well as those food hubs. And so I think it's more right now, what's happening is that it's the the market, the customer demand, which we're incentivizing through paying the schools. And the food hubs, I think, are really stepping up. We have that additional funding, the local food for schools, which is the USDA program that Gina mentioned. That money is going through the food hubs. K. And what we say is if you buy Vermont local with that money because they could choose to buy Massachusetts products instead of but if you do Vermont local, that counts for this. So we're trying to stack these different programs exactly to that point. We can try to [Speaker 6 ]: make more. What's a Foodhub? [Speaker 5 ]: It I think no. That's a great question. [Speaker 6 ]: Is it commercial or is it nonprofit? Or what what [Speaker 5 ]: Generally speaking, at least in Vermont, what a what a Foodhub is is it's a a nonprofit organization that's trying to be, like, a a a mid sized distributor. So, effectively, what they're doing, they're aggregating foods that they're buying from a bunch of different farms. They're holding it in their storage, and then it's a place for a school or a hospital or a restaurant to go and order just like on Amazon. Right? That one online catalog will be able to purchase that. Okay. Good. Good. Good. Good. Thank you. Okay. Good. Okay. Governor, just wanna [Member Steven Heffernan]: get quick. Without being that you were the nutrition program, Mishka Johnson was in from Right. Valley School. And I this I think is a great idea that they finally programmed eight schools to run under one menu. We're kinda getting used to, but that automatically, you know, helps your buying power more. Are you So so you're [Speaker 5 ]: you're doing a I think a lot of work on our team trying to find more of that efficiency. Right? You have so we have a school food authority as the kind of entity that we operate with, which is typically a a supervisory union or a school district. What we like to see from, you know, our team is one food service director that's managing operations for the entire supervisor eating exactly to that point. Why would you have eight different menus? You're buying different things. It it just yeah. There's a [Member Steven Heffernan]: lot of get the individuality of the school in that, but it's like, you know, lunches could be So I think [Speaker 5 ]: you're, yeah, and you're familiar with that, comrade. And we we work on that as well. So that is certainly something we've identified, and I think the best programs we see are the ones that are doing exactly that. They're centralizing a lot of that to to scale up. We have [Chair Seth Bongartz]: to get through two more witnesses in about eight minutes. So Well, thank you for your time. It's really quite something you certainly don't you wouldn't [Member Terry Williams]: No. I just think of that because Vermont has such a short growing season, and it takes x number of days to grow an eggplant or a tomato. Pretty much everybody plants the same time, and they and the crop is ready to be consumed at the same time too. So that everybody having the same menu would be makes sense because But unless you grow on the, unless you have, you know, greenhouses Eggplant today. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Yeah. And so it's Thank you. Thank you. That was helpful. Mhmm. [Speaker 7 ]: Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the time today. I was just editing my testimony before I came down to the state house today, so I will post it up on your website [Speaker 5 ]: this afternoon to figure out how to do that. I'll just send it to to me. [Speaker 7 ]: Send it to you? Yeah. Real flattery. [Speaker 5 ]: Okay. Here. Yeah. I'm on the the website. Yeah. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Perfect. And maybe just because of time, it I see you got two pages there. Probably, I can get your highlights. [Speaker 7 ]: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. Thank you for the opportunity to address the importance of the Farm to School of Vermont Universal School meal programs in our state. I'm Robert Hildebrand. I'm a resident of Montpelier, Vermont, and I'm the food service director with the Abbey Group. I currently manage the six schools in the Central Vermont Supervisory Union, another three schools in Orange East Supervisory Union, and also the cafeteria in this building. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So No. No. No. Brian, we don't know. [Speaker 7 ]: Today, we're asking you to to continue to support the Farm to School and Early Childhood program with level funding base appropriation of five hundred thousand for the fiscal year twenty twenty six and also support the local food incentive programs for schools at the five hundred thousand dollar level funding based appropriation. In addition, we're asking you to oppose the proposed repeal of Vermont's Universal School Meals program in the governor's fiscal year twenty six budget. And I'm gonna I'm gonna start paraphrasing here. But, basically, the universal school meal program of Vermont has been a huge success story since its inception of the COVID in twenty twenty. We that supports Vermont children with the fuel that they need to be successful learners. This fostered an atmosphere of inclusion around shared shared meal times and has been a vital component of our ability to support Vermont farmers and food producers through increased purchases of local foods. That's done so on a very fiscally efficient manner, costing much less than originally planned. We have long known that children you know, those of us in the child nutrition field have not long known that students don't have equal access to nutritious food outside of the school day. When prior to universal school meals, there's also inequality extended to the school day. The current so the without going into the particulars on the universal school meal program, we're going to cut to the chase of why it's good for Vermont farms. The universal school meal program has allowed school meal programs to greatly increase their spending on local Vermont produced foods. In the schools that I manage at Central Vermont Supervisory Union, we increased our purchase our purchases of Vermont Foods to over fifty two thousand dollars last year. It's translated to a bit over eighteen percent of our total purchase spending on foods. We focus on product categories that'll make a big impact on our purchasing, beef, yogurt, apples, maple syrup, for example. We have developed strong relations with our local producers and and, you know, and we've been working with many of them for for for a number of years. Here's how it works for us. When we have universal school meals, more children eat school meals. This allow this increased participation gives us much greater labor labor productivity production efficiency that allows us to increase the percentage of the program's revenue that we can afford to spend on food. This allows us the flexibility to pay a little more for local foods versus vegetables. Connor was talking about the three to one payback. What that means is for every dollar that I get from, you know, that comes through on the local food incentive, and it comes through a little for us, it comes through a little differently. But but but, basically, we can use that money to leverage something that might be a little bit more expensive and justify that purchase of of something that's a bit more expensive but is produced locally. So farmers know that they can count on the income and they can adjust their production and sales plans accordingly, and it becomes a very virtuous cycle. The universal school meals program has been a big success in Vermont for feeding more children than under the old system. We're buying much more locally produced Vermont food. Vermont families who are struggling to meet the high cost of living can be assured that their children are at least getting nutritious meals while at school. Children can just eat a meal when they need without worrying about how it makes them look or if it's putting their family into debt. This is all happening at a pretty minimal cost to Vermont taxpayers. In closing, we're asking again for support of continued funding of of part of the school and local community center programs at the current five hundred thousand dollar level for each program and and for your support preserving university school meals that has been such a success here in Vermont. You did a good job. Okay. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Any questions? Okay. Great. Thank you. Thank you. You're such a quick move. [Speaker 7 ]: Yeah. I think one. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: Witness last. If not, Rosie? Oh, [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: I don't have prepared testimony. [Speaker 7 ]: I'm just [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: here in case you have questions. [Speaker 5 ]: Oh. I'm sorry. Go ahead. I made everybody else. [Member Terry Williams]: No. That's [Chair Seth Bongartz]: all. I can't do. Thank you. That's really, really helpful and informative, and we'll need to hear it. So thank you. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Yeah. Thank you for having us today. And if you have any questions, first follow-up. [Speaker 5 ]: Yeah. We'll [Chair Seth Bongartz]: we'll have everybody's contact info. [Betsy Rosenbluth (Witness)]: Yeah. [Chair Seth Bongartz]: So, yeah, [Speaker 5 ]: you may well hear from us. Thank you.

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