By Rachel Huff, Healthy Roots Collaborative-Farm to School
School hosts healthy lifestyle event
Gervais Family Farm, Green Mountain Dairy , Paul-Lin Dairy, the Dairy Promotion Council and the Healthy Roots Collaborative were hosted during the Enosburg Elementary school lunch Monday January 22nd, by food service director Earleen Bosely and her Fuel Up to Play 60 team. The team, made up of 4 and 5th graders, made bicycle powered smoothies with whole fruit, yogurt and milk to celebrate VT Harvest of the Month for January: Dairy. All students were offered smoothies, while the school nutrition staff served up nachos and fresh veggie sticks with dairy based sauce and dips.
Bosely teaches her students about all sorts of Vermont foods through hands on activities and taste tests. She and her Fuel Up to Play 60 team plan and lead activities aimed at getting 60 minutes of active play in each day and eating healthy foods; the smoothie bike contributed to both goals. Students loved the smoothies and were excited to try making smoothies at home. Earleen’s efforts seem to get kids excited to try new, healthy foods. The kids join the Fuel Up Team because they “want to play cool games” and because they “do good stuff like composting and recycling”. I suspect they are most especially drawn to Earleen’s positive energy and enthusiasm for what she does.
Enosburg 1st graders have been pen pals with and visit Bakersfield’s Paul-Lin Dairy for 12 years. Linda Stanley of Paul-Lin Dairy explained that every Enosburg student has had a chance to visit their small dairy farm right up to this year’s graduating high school class! Stanley writes 4 letters a year to the Enosburg 1st graders, keeping the students up to date on what is happening on the farm, which cows are having calfs, upgrades to the farm, where the milk is being sold and descriptions of other daily tasks and farm stories. In the spring the students get to visit the farm and meet the animals and people that produce some of Vermont’s finest dairy product.