Performing Department
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Non Technical Summary
The Community Coordinated Harvest of the Month Program in Rural Southwest Montana is led by St. Peter's Health (SPH), a rural community hospital located in Helena, Montana. SPH will coordinate a committed, interdisciplinary team representing the community, school, and medical landscapes needed to guide agriculture education efforts and the nutritional health of children. SPH recognizes the need for upstream, population-level work and strong collaboration to increase available resources as prevention for chronic health conditions. The program will engage the community and classrooms in the core elements of farm to school by, 1) promoting and supporting farm to school education, specifically through expanding the Montana Harvest of the Month program, which provides 30-minute nutrition education lessons and taste tests led by Carroll College and Helena High Culinary Arts students; 2) provide support and professional development to compliment nutrition education efforts through school gardens, field trips, and additional USDA farm to school curricula; 3) support opportunities for the community and students to engage school meal improvement; and 4) utilize national service members to further the mission and capacity of the program. The program evaluation will be carried out by Carroll College students and interns and shared with community partners for feedback to ensure community input and sustainability. In addition, program success will support expansion and dissemination to additional neighboring rural school districts and to regional and national health systems as a best practice example of upstream, population-level efforts to prevent chronic health conditions.
Animal Health Component
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Research Effort Categories
Basic
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Applied
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Developmental
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Goals / Objectives
Project Goals and Intended Outcomes: Our HOM model engages numerous community organizations to build capacity, ensure sustainability, and meet the needs of children in our community. The overarching goal of this program is to increase opportunities for consistent nutrition education in our schools that is sustainable and supported by the community, and to improve the nutritional quality of school meals.Goal #1: Increase capacity for student food, garden, and nutrition education. A) High School & Carroll College students are trained to teach HOM in at least half of the fourth-grade classrooms in the 2023 & 2024 school years. B) In 2023 & 2024 school year all HPS fourth-grade students will have access to monthly HOM lessons. C) By the end of each school year every fourth-grade student will be able to list three MT-grown or raised foods. D) Ten classrooms or schools have an updated or new garden, greenhouse, grow tower, worm compost bin, or aquaculture system supported by the HOM mini-grant. E) Each classroom participating in HOM grows at least one of their HOM tastings by end of school year 2025.Goal #2: Provide training, technical support, and resources to teachers and food service staff on agriculture literacy, nutrition education, and standards. A) By 2025, 30% of HPS teachers will attend a MT Farm to School professional development training. B) By 2025, 20% of HPS teachers will implement a farm to school curriculum in their classroom. C) The HOM Coordinator will present program structure and data to the administration of at least three neighboring school districts May - September 2024. D) Neighboring school district administration in at least three schools will use Helena HOM data to promote farm to school programming with their staff in both 2023 and 2024 school years. E) By May 2025, the HOM Program will collaborate with MT Farm to School to offer virtual farm to school professional development training to school teachers in at least three neighboring school districts.Goal #3: Advance nutrition knowledge of students in elementary & secondary schools. A) Fourth grade students will report an increased acceptance of fresh, nutritious foods grown in MT in 2024 & 2025. B) By 2025 every fourth-grade student at HPS will have the opportunity to take afield trip to a local agriculture producer. C) Culinary Arts students will participate in monthly HOM lessons led by Old Salt Co-op Culinary and Community Director in both 2023 & 2024 school years.Goal #4: Establish avenue for secondary student application and integration of nutrition education. A) By the end of each semester Helena High Culinary Arts students will expand recipes offered for use in HOM tastings. B) High School Culinary Arts Students intern in Sodexo kitchen once per month to create and prepare a HOM tasting for HPS lunchrooms. C) Meal taste test results are used to promote and support Sodexo purchasing more fresh, nutritious foods for scratch-cooking. D) By 2025, Sodexo procures and serves a meal featuring one locally procured item monthly. E) Fourth grade students have confidence to promote HOM tastings in their school lunchrooms once/month.Goal #5: Grow and enhance the farm to school program to impact wider community. A) Lewis and Clark Library branches and local school libraries are stocked with books from HOM reading list. B) Fruit and vegetable costumes visit each school once per school year during HOM tastings. C) Each fourth-grade student completing HOM lessons receives a $5 farmer's market incentive. D) 90% of HOM students and their families visit the Helena Farmers Market each spring/summer. E) SPH presents HOM data results at 2024 MT Healthcare conference. F) SPH awards 10 mini-grants to teachers or schools to purchase or update a school garden, grow tower, worm compost bin, or aquaculture system for use in the classroom or school. G) HOM classrooms grow or procure from a local garden at least one taste test item.Goal #6: Foster high levels of community engagement and support the expansion of national service and volunteer opportunities. A) HOM outcomes are reported to community partners annually supporting HPS central kitchen expansion and improvement efforts for Sodexo to have adequate space to prepare and store locally procured foods and offer a technical education program. B) Each year 50% of High School Culinary Arts and Carroll College Public Health students actively engaged in annual community HOM nutrition and agriculture education opportunities. C) SPH applies for and is awarded an AmeriCorps Summer Associate for summer of 2024. D) A HOM summer position is supported by SPH starting in summer of 2025. E) HOM Coordinator guides two Carroll interns per school year in data collection and management.
Project Methods
The HOM Program implements the three core elements of Farm to School programming including procurement, school gardens, & education. To achieve the project goals and outcomes, SPH and project partners will expand the community HOM program by continuing existing mutually beneficial partnerships; providing support for lesson extensions; and engaging wider community support for farm to school education & engagement at the policy, system, and environment levels.HOM Classes: To expand reach of the HOM Program, SPH will continue to coordinate High School and Carroll College students to visit fourth-grade classrooms monthly and prepare taste tests using locally procured foods. In 2021, the HOM Coordinator worked with one Culinary Arts class to increase classroom visitors who could teach HOM. Each visit included an interactive educational activity geared for fourth grade students to learn about a Montana-grown or raised food. At the end of each lesson, students tasted the item prepared in a recipe by the Culinary Arts students. In the 2022-2023 school year, the HOM Coordinator added a Carroll College Public Health class to assist with lessons. Today, we have the HOM Coordinator providing monthly lessons to 12 fourth-grade classrooms & two early childhood classrooms, Carroll College Public Health students teaching eight classrooms, & Helena High Culinary Arts students teaching two and preparing the taste tests. We intend to expand to all fourth-grade classrooms in the district and to share our model with neighboring rural communities. The HOM Coordinator will work with School District administration to organize professional development opportunities for staff for training and education about the HOM program and other Farm to School resources, how it meets nutrition education standards, and how to integrate it into the classroom. The HOM Coordinator will use program metrics from fourth-grade lessons for promotion to additional teachers and to neighboring communities.School Garden Mini Grant: A few schools in the HSD already have garden space, a grow tower, or even materials to set up an aquaponics system. However, there is wider district interest in these & even worm compost stations & classroom grow stations, for which the HOM Coordinator will administer & promote a mini grant program open to any classroom teacher in the community & neighboring districts. The HOM Coordinator will work with MT Farm to School to provide training to interested teachers for access to resources & technical assistance to implement these projects in the classroom. Trainings will increase knowledge & confidence in maintaining these systems/tools in a school setting. Mini grants can also be used to update any existing resources. It will be required to attend a MT Farm to School training before receiving funding. SPH will also print educational signs, which have already been designed, featuring HOM foods for use in school garden and growing projects. Improve Participation and Quality in School Meal Programs: A barrier to getting HOM foods into the district lunchrooms has been that all meals for the district are prepared in a central kitchen with limited staff & equipment to efficiently prepare whole foods, resulting in the district purchasing heat-and-eat meals. Using taste test results from HOM lessons, high school culinary arts studentswill help in the Sodexo kitchen once/month during the grant period to highlight HOM recipes on the lunch menu. To promote local procurement and try new product, Sodexo will have $10,000 in the first year & $5,000 in the second incentivizing local procurement for Culinary Arts student recipes & featuring them on the menu. As ambassadors, the fourth-grade students will lead & promote taste tests in the lunchroom. The KNC & School District Nutrition Sub-committee will share the activities & success of this program to support the beginning of a technical career & central kitchen improvement & campaign. Farmers Market Incentive: In order to encourage families to try some of the HOM items at home, the fourth-grade HOM participants will receive a $5 Farmers Market incentive to spend on any produce they would like at the end of the school year. This can only be used on fresh produce much like the SNAP tokens already used at the market. Not only will this provide a benefit for the students and their families, but the market will also benefit with increased foot traffic from students visiting the market and vendors will see increased sales. Grant funds will go directly to the producers accepting these coupons as well as funds needed to create the physical coupons. Students will also be encouraged to engage directly with farmers and ask questions such as how do they like to prepare the food, how is it grown, and what is your favorite thing to grow. SPH will also have a monthly booth at the market and encourage students to stop by to learn more or to share what they were able to buy with their incentive. Agriculture Education Field Trips: To complement Farm to School efforts and the HOM Program, the HOM Coordinator will work with community partners such as Helena Food Share and Old Salt Co-op to develop a list of recommended field trip locations. These will be shared with K-12 teachers at HPS. Fourth-grade teachers will have access to grant funds to support travel expenses for these field trips so that each fourth-grade class may participate in one visit to a local producer within two hours of Helena each year. Classrooms will combine trips for most efficient use of grant funds. National Service and Volunteer Opportunities: In order to expand capacity of the program, SPH will apply for an AmeriCorps Summer Associate for summer 2024 to help expand program efforts in the summer months when we are busiest with garden season. Under supervision of the HOM Coordinator, the Summer Associate would work with summer school programs to provide garden education activities, present the HOM Farmers Market booth, and provide new recipe tasting demonstrations at the SFSP sites in partnership with Sodexo. Using SFSP sites to trial new recipes will be beneficial for Sodexo so that there is less risk involved in utilizing new ingredients and possibly losing money and wasting food. Successful tastings will influence the NSLP and SBP menus for the school year.Engage Community in Farm to School Efforts: The school-based nutrition education activities will be complemented by a wider community childhood nutrition promotional campaign. We will use fruit and vegetable costumes in public events, farmers market, and tastings in school cafeterias.