Congratulations to the Winners of the Farm to School Challenge!

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Author: Jolene Cushman

Posted: June 12, 2013

Categories: Edible Education Network / Good Food Ideas for Kids / GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Ontario

The May round of the Ontario Farm to School Challenge has come to a close! We’d like to say a big congratulations to the winners, Sir George Ross Secondary School in London and Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute in Toronto. These two schools are making an impact with innovative classroom programs spearheaded by passionate instructors.

Do you know of a school in Ontario that has been taking steps to bring more local food into their classes, programs, or events? Encourage them to submit an entry in the next round of the challenge, happening in Fall 2013.

If you are looking for ways to get involved and to incorporate more Ontario foods into your school food programs, you can also visit the Ontario Farm to School Challenge website for more ideas, resources and strategies.

Read on to learn more about the winners of this round!

Winner Profile: Sir George Ross Secondary School

Location: 365 Belfield Street, London, Ontario

Congratulations to Sir George Ross Secondary School, one of two winning schools from this round of the Ontario Farm to School Challenge! Unique to Sir George Ross Secondary School is Chris Squire, a chef, caterer and culinary educator in London, Ontario. He is extremely passionate about teaching others about good food, especially youth. Squire teaches culinary skills to the students of SGRSS, ensuring to include the benefits of local, healthy food and nutrition choices in his courses. With a complete butcher shop and commercial-size bakery on campus, the students learn how to butcher and wrap local meat and make breads and desserts from scratch. Sir George Ross Secondary School is a one-of-a-kind high school within the province of Ontario. In order to replicate the ‘real world’ experience of working in a commercial kitchen, students come in at 8a.m. to help prepare a multiple food item menu ready to be served to all SGRSS students during lunch periods. The students have taken on many projects including preparing a Christmas turkey dinner for 200 people and preparing food on a regular basis for a few church groups that provide free meals to families in need. The program operates by charging for the cost of food, but not for the labour.

Chris Squire believes that the movement to introduce nutrition and culinary classes in schools across the city is a wonderful idea. In his opinion, cooking is knowledge that everyone should share.

Chris Squire is a local food champion and the successful culinary program at SGRSS definitely serves as an inspiration for other schools across Ontario. We hope the program also serves as an inspiration for more schools to become involved in the upcoming fall round of the Ontario Farm to School Challenge!

Read more about the culinary program at Sir George Ross in this EatDrink Magazine article: Teaching the Importance of Food: Chef Chris Squire leads new generations into the kitchen.

Winner Profile: Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute

Location: 800 Greenwood Avenue, Toronto

Sean is a professional chef and hospitality teacher at the Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute in Toronto, one of two winning schools of this round of the Ontario Farm to School Challenge. He says that schools in Ontario are fortunate that the beginning of the school year corresponds with the harvest season.

Sean begins his food-focused course with foundational safety and sanitation units, followed by a practical unit dedicated to the topic of food preservation. According to Sean, the unit is a great way to highlight the merits of eating locally. Last year, the school canned 400 lbs of tomatoes, and made countless jars of preserves and pickles utilizing Ontario peppers, peaches, plums, eggplants and cucumbers. In addition to learning basic food preparation techniques, students gain an appreciation of the value of foods grown locally and enjoyed, or processed, in season. Sean uses cost analysis exercises to illustrate the financial benefits of taking advantage of this food, while the flavours captured for the long, cold winter speak for themselves.

Sean has also supplied the classroom with some of the local produce collected through his Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) membership with Plan B Organic Farms. Plan B is a multi-farm CSA system that sources certified organic produce from 12 farms in Southern Ontario to provide to their shareholders/members.

The course collects the majority of its fall produce from Colangelo Brothers Fruit Market in Scarborough, an Italian butcher/grocer. This past May, tomatoes that were canned in September were used by the students to make pizza and (local!) veal sandwiches that were sold to staff.

Sean is excited to be launching an Applied Nutrition course at the school next year, which will integrate food, health and nutrition. Though still in development, his hope is to partner with local growers and utilize as much local product as possible. His goal is to forge lasting relationships with farmers, community groups and organizations, such as Sustain Ontario, in order to develop an influential experience for his students.

We are thrilled to hear about all of these growing initiatives at Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute. Congratulations Sean Meikle and the students at Danforth Collegiate and Technical Institute for winning this round of the Ontario Farm to School Challenge!