District News
Saratoga Farmers' Market to spend winter
months at Division Street School
Partnership adds more
locally grown produce to school menus
A unique partnership between the school district and the Saratoga Farmers’ Market is resulting in the use of more locally grown, fresh produce in school lunch menus. Beginning Nov. 7, the market will use the gym at the Division Street Elementary School as its indoor winter location. Produce grown by area farmers will be contributed to the school district to help defray the cost of renting the gym.
| Margaret Lamb, school
lunch director, left, and Laurie Hall, cook manager
at the high school, with a van loaded with Farmers'
Market produce ready for delivery to district
schools.
|
“It’s a great opportunity for everyone,” said Margaret Lamb, school lunch director. “We’re been promoting the use of local produce in the preparation of school lunches for several years, and this will help us expand that practice.”
The collaborative effort is believed to be the only one of its kind in the United States, and is attracting national attention, Ms. Lamb said. The locally grown, mostly organic produce from farmers' market vendors has been showing up on school menus since late October. During the week of Nov. 2, more than 600 heads of lettuce and a variety of other local produce is featured in salads and other menu items at all eight schools in the district.
For the farmers, the gym provides a more accessible location, 50 percent more space and better parking than their previous winter home at the Salvation Army on Woodlawn Avenue.
“It’s a win-win situation for both parties,” said Sandy Arnold, a farmers’ market vendor who operates Pleasant Valley Farm in Argyle with her husband, Paul. The winter market will feature an assortment of vegetables, including greens and root crops, along with vendors selling meat, cheese and baked goods. It will be open from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays through April 24, until moving to its seasonal location on High Rock Avenue in Saratoga Springs.
| Boxes of locally grown produce are headed to school cafeterias. |