Elevated cuisine will be the flavor du jour at Wessington Springs Schools beginning next month, when a new “Beef to School” program featuring beef produced by local ranchers lands in the lunchroom.
The program, spearheaded by local producers and made possible after months of planning, securing donations and navigating logistics has finally become a reality through collaboration with the district.
“I heard about what Wall Locker and Wall School District were doing,” said Jerauld County resident Katie Jones, who alongside Audra Scheel, SDSU Extension 4-H Youth Program Advisor for Sanborn and Jerauld/ Buffalo Counties have been working with the school on what will eventually be a larger Farm to School Program. “I felt like Jerauld County could benefit.”
Wessington Springs Schools Superintendent Dr. Michael Ormsmith highlights this first chapter of the program, along with an upcoming community kick off event in this week’s print and e-edition of the True Dakotan.
“We sincerely appreciate the support for this very important project and look forward to working with the members of our community to feed our students locally produced food,” Ormsmith said.
See Ormsmith’s column below for many more details about the program:
Bringing Local Foods to School Lunch
By Dr. Michael Ormsmith
For almost a year, the school district has been working with the SDSU Extension 4-H Program office to explore using locally produced foods in our school nutrition program.
This idea began when Audra Scheel brought a USDA Farm to School grant opportunity to the district. The grant’s focus is using local foods in school cafeterias and providing school districts with resources to buy and process those local foods. Our grant application included asking for funds to purchase a new industrial mixer for the kitchen to begin using local foods in our lunch program. On the local foods side, Katie Jones suggested using locally produced and processed beef in our lunches as a good place to start.
Last August, the district received $2,600 to purchase the new mixer from the grant. Over the next few months, we had several meetings to discuss introducing local beef to the school lunch program. After a lot of behind the scenes work, the district received its first delivery of locally produced beef in December. We will begin using the beef in our school lunches next month.
We have several people to thank for making this first donation possible: Wessington Springs student, Hayes Christensen, who donated the animal; the Kimball Livestock Exchange for helping Hayes donate the first animal; Schelske Angus for transporting the animal to the locker; and to Travis Hohn, Melanie Heezen, and Sarah Faulstich with the On Target Agency for donating the processing fee.
Another requirement of the grant is to hold a Homegrown Lunch Day in our school where we provide education related to locally produced foods and feature local products in the school lunch. On February 21, 2023, our Homegrown Lunch Day will feature the local beef in our meal (beef pizza) and our FFA students will provide activities for our students. The community is welcome to attend lunch with us that day to learn more about using local foods in school. If you would like to attend, please let us know by calling the elementary school to reserve a meal at 539-9500.
The district anticipates needing four to six animals a year to provide enough beef for our lunch program. Now that the local food program is off the ground, we want to offer the community the opportunity to help keep it going. Using local beef in our school lunches is just the first step toward featuring more local foods in the menu. If you are interested in helping, either by donating an animal or contributing to the processing costs, please contact our Business Manager, Marcy Argo, at 539-9391 or visit our website for more information.
We sincerely appreciate the support for this very important project and look forward to working with the members of our community to feed our students locally produced food!