GREEN RIVER — Sweetwater County School District No. 2 students will receive a fresh Wyoming-grown ear of corn with their school lunches tomorrow.
October is Farm to School month. Farm to School is a national program bringing local foods into the schools for kids to eat. It helps educate students and families to choose healthy and local food options while simultaneously stimulating local farming economies. 1890 Farms in Riverton provided thousands of ears of corn to 37 different school districts in Wyoming, including SCSD No. 2.
Leah Kenison, SCSD No. 2 Food Service Director, said the school district received more than 1,200 ears of corn, all of which will be served Wednesday.
“I’m excited, I know there’s some kids who haven’t even had corn on the cob,” Kenison said.
Not only does the corn provide a locally grown meal for the students, but it also counts towards a multi-state competition called the Farm to School Crunch Off. Wyoming competes against Colorado, Montana, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to see which state can eat the most local produce per capita.
“This is the first time since I’ve been here that we’ve participated in Farm to School, so it’s just trying to bring in Wyoming-grown products and letting the kids get an exposure,” Kenison said. “Today started our Crunch Off, so every meal that was eaten today, we get to count that as a crunch off, and same with tomorrow.”
As the corn is fresh from Riverton, all of it had to be shucked Tuesday afternoon to prepare for cooking Wednesday. The Nutrition Services Department brought in Green River High School’s Future Farmers of America chapter to help shuck the corn.
“FFA is going to have a greenhouse in the next few years, so I want to work with the FFA group to bring that produce at least into the high school so these kids can be like, ‘I helped grow that, now it’s on the serving line.’ So that’s kind of what Farm to School is, it’s about bringing in locally grown products to where people from the state can experience them,” Kenison said.
