Dear Friend,
If you sometimes shop at Whole Foods in Hadley, please consider shopping there Wednesday Sept. 16. The store will be donating 5% of the day's sales to the Mass. Farm to School Project, to help support Mass. Harvest for Students Week this month. Thanks so much to Anne Walsh-Sullivan at Whole Foods for making this generous gesture!
We've come a long way: 205 public school districts in Mass. reported they preferentially purchased locally grown foods for their student meals during the last school year, and more than 60 local farms sold directly to schools and colleges. But we still have plenty of work to do, including getting the Amherst schools on board. It seems like Amherst is sliding backwards as many other districts are moving ahead.
The Amherst school food service director reports she isn't preferentially serving local foods anymore and "can't" buy from local farmers, only approved vendors. We're doing worse now than when Chartwells was buying token amounts from Czajkowski Farm in Hadley. Atkins Farm has indicated they would like to sell peaches, pears, apples from their orchards to the school district and they've been told it's not possible, because they're not approved vendors. I don't think the current superintendent is aware of previous efforts to improve the school meals by using fresh locally grown items.
We've not yet raised all the funds we need to meet this year's budget, so any help you can offer is much appreciated!
Thanks,
Kelly Erwin, former WW parent
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