← New York Farm Bureau News Bytes
New York Farm Bureau News Bytes
#5: Interview with Rebekka Henriksen on Farm to School Program - 9/10/25
00:23:24
Loading summary
Transcript39 lines
- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome.
- [00:12]
B
Today we are speaking with Rebecca Henriksen here in Schenectady at Zoller elementary School. Our topic today is farm to school, and Rebecca is quite the expert on farm to school. So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, maybe a little bit about your background and what you do here at Zoller.
- [00:28]
A
Oh, okay. So I have been doing farm to school work for about six years with the district. I'm going to my sixth school year as farm to school manager for the district. And before that I was a garden educator. I also am a master naturalist, master composter through Cornell Cooperative Extension. I have studied horticulture and botany. But I have rather an unusual background in that I do not have degrees and you know, know agriculture or horticulture. My degree is actually in theater and Italian. Very useful degrees. Right. And somehow I ended up here. But I have, I do have a background in nutrition and especially in childhood nutrition issues. I consulted for several years with nichcu, which is National Institute for Children's Health Quality Improvement. I've worked on several big projects with them. I've also been a lactation counselor for 12 years now and always really passionate about children and children's health. And I started in this work really mostly as a garden educator. Have been teaching nature education and garden education for more than 10 years now to kids outside the district. But my children are all students in the district and started to go here to Zoller elementary. And I would walk them to school every day and see this really neglected garden overgrown. And it really bothered me. And I mentioned something offhanded to a teacher. And then before I knew it, the principal came up to me one day and said, you know, if you would like to do something with this garden, we would love for you to do something. And my eldest son was in Cub Scout pack here at the time and we thought this would be a great Cub Scout project. And also worked a little bit with Cornell Cooperative with the local extension. And I ended up building an enormous edible garden here. And I've also always been passionate about agriculture. I grew up in Roch, Rochester, New York, but properly in the city of Rochester. And my father was a OG urban gardener, you know, before they called it as such. He grew all of our own produce in our backyard. We had a composting system like all this stuff. And that was because he, as an Italian American, his family, he comes from a family of farmers in Italy. Actually, my family in Italy still farms. They have a big, huge tomato farm. If you've had Any kind of tomato paste or canned tomatoes from Italy. Some of those were probably grown on my family's farm. And so I just kind of had in my background, and I've just always been passionate about working with kids, nourishing children. And so I was like, yeah, let's do this. Let's do this garden. And just built the program from there.
- [03:09]
B
Wow, that's a lot. And tell us about what is Farm to School for those of us who might not know?
- [03:16]
A
Yeah. So Farm to School is a movement. It's a national movement. It's been around for at least 40 years. We kind of have the west coast Farm to School that Alice Waters and her restaurant, and she started to do Edible Schoolyard, which is a wonderful program. And on the east coast, of course, we've had Vermont feeds and Shelburne Falls Farm. And of course we know Senator Patrick Leahy, which started the USDA grant for Farm to School. So that's the movement started in Vermont on the East Coast. But this is a movement and it prioritizes cafeteria, classroom and community. We talk about the three Cs of farm to School. So cafeteria, the focus is on getting local produce, meat and dairy into our school lunch menus. So procuring from local farmers and by local, it doesn't need to be necessarily hyper local. It can be New York State. We want to get those amazing New York State grown and produced products into our school lunch to nourish our kids for the classroom. It means pushing in, doing agricultural connected lessons. And school gardens are a big, big part of that. And then community, it's, you know, reaching out to the wider community, getting them connected to both in partnerships, connected to the schools and the kids, but also like inviting them into events. I just had a pickle party here last night where we had over 100 people making, learning how to make a quick pickle with student grown produce and local grown produce and herbs and garlic and things. Right. Many of it sourced right from this garden. So bringing them in, connecting them to school gardens, connecting them to kids, connecting them to local producers and just to these skills that a lot of us, not just children, have lost connection to. Right.
- [05:01]
B
So important to have that connection.
- [05:03]
A
Yeah.
- [05:03]
B
Speaking about the garden, the edible garden, tell us a little more about what's in these gardens behind us.
- [05:09]
A
So we do. So almost everything in this garden is edible. So even the flowers. Because who doesn't love eating a flower, especially if you're a kid like that, is so exciting and fun for them. And we also do a lot of lessons around Pollen, pollination. So we always, you know, we talk a lot about companion planting, how flowers can be used to ward off, you know, pests, but also attract our important pollinators. And then we have everything from our pizza garden that has a mixture of things you want to use to make pizza sauce, so. Or put on your pizza. So we have tomatoes, basil, oregano, peppers. We also have some eggplant thrown in there. We also have three sisters garden, which we try to do at multiple buildings. So we have some heirloom squash in that. We have a ginormous squash. It's like, I wish there was a county fair right now because we would win a prize for the squash. It's about the size of my torso. And we, right now we're growing, popping corn in there because kids really love the popcorn. And of course, beans. We grow heirloom beans in that. And we do a lot of lessons around three sisters. We have strawberries because what child does not love to pick a fresh strawberry? And then we have a salad garden. So all kinds of salad greens. We have roots, so we have carrots and radish. Kids love pulling things out of the soil. We have potatoes growing. We have a lot of cabbage. We have cucumbers. So we have kind of like a pickle garden with pickling cucumbers. And okra is important to a lot of the families in our community. So we do try to grow a lot of okra. And then we have an herb, like a culinary and medicinal herb gard. And also on this campus, we have a 30 tree apple orchard. We have maple sugar bush, and we have a monarch waystation garden. So that's just some of what we do. We have 16 gardens in the school district, and not all of them are as big as this. This is the biggest garden in the district because I've been here the longest. And also it's the biggest campus that has. That can accommodate this. But we also have a greenhouse. We have three, three fruit orchards now at various buildings. And I do maple sugaring on five of our campuses. Wow. Yeah.
- [07:24]
B
Again, that's. You have a busy day. So talk about food accessibility a little bit. And how does farm to school and your gardens in particular help with accessible food?
- [07:36]
A
Yeah. So in our district, over 79% of our students qualify for free or reduced lunch. We also live in a city of about 70,000 people where we only have one full service grocery store within city limits. And that grocery store is actually physically cut off from a large section of the city, particularly from our lowest income neighborhoods that Also deal with transportation issues. So food access is a daily, very alive issue for the majority of our students and their families. We have food pantries at all of our school buildings now. And we also, the school gardens are really for me, a way to increase access to fresh produce for our students. So one of the reasons why I invite community in is to also not just our students, but their families to get impacted by that. I also do regular distributions of not just school grown produce, but also local farmer grown produce to school families. We have our farm to family on wheels truck for the last two seasons where we twice a week distribute hyperlocal meat, dairy, eggs and produce to anyone who shows up to our truck. So all of that really, food access is a central pillar of my program, just given my community, and I will say also personal experience. When I started this garden, my children were really reliant on school meals for the majority of their nutrition during the day. And I struggled with food access myself. But I again, given my background with my father and my family, I knew how to grow stuff. I mean, it wasn't enough to feed a family of five, but it was important to me. It gave me a sense of dignity and self respect. And it was really important for me that our students and their families also have that, you know. Right. So.
- [09:38]
B
So that kind of leads right into my next question. When you talk about bringing fresh, you know, meats and veggies and fruit to the people.
- [09:44]
A
Yeah, let's talk a little bit about.
- [09:45]
B
Nutrition and how this program is so important. I mean, there's been some criticism in recent years, as I'm sure you know, about school lunches and school meals in general. It seems like things are maybe turning around a little bit on that.
- [09:55]
A
Yeah, well, I mean, and I really want to credit farm to school for that, for changing the conversation. Because a huge part, you know, local procurement really depends on like scratch cooking skills, which, you know, there was this horrible movement over the last few decades to tear out school kitchens to really make them just heat and serve operations, you know, where you would maybe have a central commissary that then prepares all the meals and then they get shipped out to the different buildings and then just put into a warmer and then, you know, or put into steamers. They. So there was a huge reliance on ultra processed foods because that's what you have to do in order to accommodate that kind of cooking style. But there's been a huge movement and again, I really want to credit the farm to school movement with this, with going back to scratch cooking skills. There's things like the Chef Ann foundation that are a huge force in this movement as well, where they give a series of grants to schools to kind of replace equipment, to reinstall those, like, cooking ranges and ovens that they took out, and also to teach their, you know, their cafeteria workers those important skills that they haven't really needed necessarily to work in those situations. Right, right.
- [11:13]
B
And speaking of putting kitchens back in and, you know, going back to this idea of healthier food in schools, you know, as I'm sure you know, studies show that when children are exposed to healthy foods at a younger age, they tend to be healthier eaters as adults. So what do you see the reaction being of these little kids when they pull the food out of the ground.
- [11:30]
A
And they pick the veggies themselves? There's nothing like it. And this is really what keeps me going in the work on the, like, the hard days where I'm like, oh, this is so hard, is those moments and I have them constantly where a child picks like a cherry tomato that they've grown or pulls that carrot out of the ground and. And they eat it and their whole face lights up and it just changes their entire relationship to food. It really, really does. And, you know, I really like the word nourishing because, you know, I think many things can be nourishing to us, but I feel like it's a whole body nourishment to grow your own food and to taste it and to prepare it. You know, the kids, I remember we grew potatoes here last year and we harvested them together, the fifth graders. And then I went into classroom with an air fryer and we made air fried french fries with the potatoes that they had planted the year before were harvesting this year. And they were like, we didn't even know french fries were made from potatoes, you know, and they were like, and this is the best french fry we ever ate our entire lives. They're like, can you give me the recipe? You know, and then we also made mashed potatoes, the same thing. Can I have your recipe? And I'm like, well, you know, and it's just. It just lights them up. And, you know, look, I get kids to eat kale, like raw kale, like this. This is the magic of farm to school. You know, school gardens. It really is eating raw kale and liking it, you know, I mean, this is. It really does. I see it all the time. And, you know, it's one of the reasons why I will always be dedicated to this work. Yeah.
- [13:07]
B
So we see Farm to School at Farm Bureau as a. As a win win for both the farmers and as you're talking about with the nutrition, with. With the school children, obviously you've got a great big institutional market, not just schools.
- [13:18]
A
Yeah.
- [13:20]
B
Is there any discussion in. In your classrooms in particular about where their food comes from?
- [13:24]
A
Yeah, well, 100%. So, I mean, all. Every lesson I teach is really about where does your food come from? Yeah, I just hit that again and again and again. And now, of course, I'm also leaning activities like our maple sugaring, where they're actually doing it all themselves. They become maple farmers. You know, I say to. As soon as I teach a kid how to tap a tree, I say, you're a maple farmer. Now they're like, we're maple farmers. They just get so excited about it, you know. But yeah, I mean, and I bring farmers into the classroom. I'm actually starting a new initiative this year called Farmer in the Classroom, where my goal is to bring in as many small local farmers as possible physically into the classroom with kids to talk about their farming, talk about what they grow, bring in samples. I've done this kind of in a piecemeal fashion over the years, but I want to make this a much more widespread and organized program this year, and kids love it. And what I love about this too, is so not only do institutions like school districts provide an incredible market for farmers, and I know it's not always easy, especially for really small farmers, because, you know, we do require a level of processing that they might not have the staff or equipment yet to do. But I do feel it's worth the investment because once you make that relationship and get in like this is an ongoing, steady, large market, that you can really be of benefit to your farm. But, you know, these kids also want to become farmers. And as we know, our farming population is aging out, and their own children don't necessarily want to take over the operations for a variety of reasons. But I get these kids here in Schenectady so excited, especially when they meet and work with these farmers. I want to be a beekeeper. You know, I brought in orchardist. I want to be an apple farmer. You know, I want to raise cows. I want to be a dairy farmer. I want to grow food for people. So, I mean, I think this is very potent as well to create a future generation. Right. We need people who are going to grow our food, and these kids want to do it. So that's another reason that I see value in this work.
- [15:34]
B
They can't want to be an apple Farmer if they have no exposure.
- [15:37]
A
Right, right. If they don't know about. I mean, I'm teaching them how to gr. And, you know, and they're tasting apples and we're making cider together, and then I'm bringing the farmer and then we bring them to the farm. And it's, you know, it's a very powerful experience for these kids.
- [15:48]
B
That sounds amazing. You touched on this a little bit earlier. But tell us about food security. It sounds like that is somewhat of an issue, at least in this school and I'm sure other schools. How does farm to school help with that, with food security issues?
- [16:01]
A
Well, again, I think, you know, real food security means resilient local food system. All right. And that involves local farms being successful. And so, you know, the more local procurement we can do from New York state farms, the more resilient our food system. I mean, I think we all had the experience in Covid where we really saw the flaws in our food system, which, you know, look, our food system and industrial farming has been incredible and has fed billions of people. And I'm never, ever going to knock it. I'm really not going to knock it. But I also think we really saw the weaknesses exposed. And especially just given everything going on with climate and some of our, like, biggest growing states really being negatively impacted by climate change and those events, you know, to have hyperlocal and local and just regional and state producers supplying our food and having them be successful with these kind of markets, I mean, that's the best way to create stable food access, I feel. And again, teaching kids and families how to grow their own food, giving them seedlings, leading workshops, giving them lessons that also does increase food access. Again, they might not be able to grow enough to feed their family. Right. And obviously they're not raising a cow in their backyard in Schenectady. At least I hope they're not doing that. They could get in trouble. But, you know, just to connect to these food ways. And a lot of our kids come from, you know, they're in their country's agriculture. You know, they're only a generation or two removed from agriculture. So there are skills and there's wisdom there that, you know, that they bring to me as well. So to have that and to have that be successful, I think to give them those skills, reinforce those skills really leads to increased food access in addition to, like, the food distribution and the school gardens providing food for them and so forth.
- [18:07]
B
Right. And that access should happen everywhere. So there's a little bit of a misconception out there that this local or even hyperlocal farms only really serve rural communities. Whereas we know that's not the case. We can see it right here.
- [18:20]
A
Yeah.
- [18:21]
B
And you do a little bit of both, right? In your line of work, you serve this school and others who are in different settings.
- [18:28]
A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, our school, this school is kind of interesting. It's almost suburban, just like the neighborhood. Not that there's not low income folks here or anything, but we have, you know, we're a large school district. We have 9,000 or so students. Schenectady is a little bit of a sprawling city and we have many different kinds of neighborhoods and we have like, I guess what you would could say, really hyper urban neighborhoods where there's no green space and where they're really surrounded by fast food or convenience stores and that's their food access. And the school garden at those buildings is really the only green space in the neighborhood. Many of our school gardens are kind of de facto community gardens as well. That's why I do workshops in them. They're open to the public. People can sign up to volunteer in the garden they can harvest. And of course, we have regular giveaways and distribution of the produce we grow in those spaces. You know, it's not just school families who show up to that either. It's also neighbors and community members who come. So all of that is really important. And of course, as we know, to get local farms into these markets. Right. We have more people here. So, you know, some of my real rural farmers who are like out in Schoharie hill towns or whatever, they necessarily have the market there to support them. Whereas me buying, you know, 500 pounds of their meat to distribute on this truck or to get into our cafeteria, that can save the season for them.
- [19:59]
B
Again, a win, win for everybody involved.
- [20:02]
A
Yeah.
- [20:03]
B
So October is of course, national farm to school month. Do you have any. You mentioned a lot of activities. You do, but do you have any special activities planned?
- [20:12]
A
So that's a huge month for us and we love that. So we do a lot of things. So every month at school, we have a harvest of the month taste test that features a New York state seasonal product. And kids taste it and they get to tell us do they love it, like it or tried it. You know, we don't use any negative language around food. So we do a special harvest of the month every October. It usually features apples because it's also national apple month and we have a ton of apple farmers. Some are just literally five miles outside our City limits. We also do Big Apple Crunch. We do it at a different school building every year. This year it'll be Yates Elementary School. That does it. That's where every child gets a local grown apple and they take a simultaneous bite and we record the moment and, you know, we tell, talk to the kids about where those apples came from, who grew it. We put up a little slide about the farmer. We have a big assembly and the kids are always like, this is the best apple I ever tasted in my life. You know, they love it. And I also do a series of farmer pop up markets, I call them, where I do them at usually four or five school buildings during dismissal times. And I give all fresh local produce. I buy it from vendors at the green market here in Schenectady, which are all local farmers. And I also harvest from the school garden. I also have students who help me staff these events and they're very proud to talk about what they grew up. And we just distribute it to folks and we distribute hundreds of pounds of food every month. So that's like a really big thing that we do.
- [21:51]
B
Amazing. You have a lot to be proud of.
- [21:53]
A
Oh, thank you.
- [21:54]
B
And even better, I think it's obvious the kids are proud of what they're doing.
- [21:57]
A
Oh, yeah, yeah. And these gardens really are their spaces and their work. School gardens, they're never going to be as precise and beautiful as, you know, like someone's home garden or botanical garden. But that's because the kids, they're in charge. They help me decide what to plant and they're the ones doing the planting. So that's why I might have a clump of carrots here and next to it like lettuce and, you know, but it's really theirs and they build it and they harvest it and then they prepare it and it's a powerful, powerful experience for them.
- [22:32]
B
Well, thank you for all this. You're really a role model for all things, you know, agriculture in the schools. We love that at Farm Bureau. So thank, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure.
- [22:41]
A
Thank you. My pleasure. For generations, New York's farms have been the backbone of our state, feeding our families and fueling our economy. And for over 100 years, New York Farm Bureau has been the voice of agriculture, advocating for the hard working men and women who cultivate our land. You can be part of a powerful movement protecting our farms, supporting rural communities, and growing a stronger New York. There's no better time to be a member. Join today@nyfb.org or call 1-800-342-4143 and press 0.