Early Childhood Farm to School: The Power and Curiosity of Our Youngest Learners

Dinah: Welcome to Farm to School Northeast, a podcast where we explore the creative ways that local food is getting into school cafeterias and how food system education is playing out in classrooms and school gardens across the northeast. Today our focus is on early childhood education and its connection to farm, to school and childhood nutrition, and we have the opportunity to interview Maggie Lynch, RDN, director of Nutrition Services, Karley Besozzi, director of Nutrition Education, and Lindsey Bogot, Farm to School and Food Access Coordinator from the Metro West YMCA in Framingham, Massachusetts. The Metro West YMCA is currently building a farm to school program that connects to classrooms, kitchen, and community through hands-on nutrition and gardening education, fostering wellness, curiosity, and a shared commitment to healthy living and environmental stewardship. Welcome everybody.

Maggie, Carly and Lindsey: Thanks so much for having us.

Dinah: Could you each introduce yourself?

Maggie: Yeah, absolutely. Hi everyone. My name is Maggie Lynch. I am the director of Nutrition Services at the Metro West YMCA, where I get to work with this awesome team today and oversee our food programs.

Karley: Awesome. Hello everybody. I am Karley Besozzi. I am our Director of Nutrition Education, so I work directly with the kids in our families and just implementing nutrition education and so many different ways.

Lindsey: Hi guys. My name is Lindsay Bogot. I'm the Farm to School and Food Access Coordinator here at the Y. I get to do amazing gardening education with the kids and help to make sure that they have access to nutritious food, and I am very excited to be here today.

Dinah:  Well, thank you all so much for joining me this morning. I'm really excited for people to hear about the Metro West YMCA program. So could you tell me how did the Metro West YMCA get into farm to early education programming? Is it something that is unique to your YMCA or is the regional or national network of YMCAs incorporating more of this programming for their early education afterschool and camp programs?

Maggie: That's a great question. So our Y is I would say one of the leaders in nutrition education and gardening education, but we have an awesome network from WISE across the country. So we have two stories on how we got to where we are today. So I'm going to break it down for nutrition and for the gardening side and show how they merged together over really the past, I would say year and a half. So we're really lucky to be in the network of wise. The YMCA has these standards called HEPA standards. It stands for Healthy Eating and Physical Activity Standards, which is basically just what you would expect following the dietary guidelines for Americans, incorporating that into our menus, getting kids to be active every day. And our Y has stood as a champion for the past 10 years. We received a grant in 2023. It's a tongue twister, but it's called the Early Childhood Nutrition Education and Access grant.

We received that from YUSA, the national grant, and really what it allowed us to do is take the work we were doing with our HEPA standards, getting into our classrooms for nutrition, and it allowed us to formalize what we were doing. So Karley was able to go into our classrooms regularly and work with the children. She started a program called Cooking with Littles to engage our community members so that caregivers and their children could learn how to work together in a kitchen. We know sometimes that can be a stressful environment. And then she took that Cooking with Littles and we received a curriculum from this grant called the Dr. Yum curriculum, which Karley will talk about later. And she brought that to every classroom once a month teaching about different foods. So through some grants and support from the national Y, we were able to kind of get our nutrition education started.

And then thanks to the Mass Fresh Grant, we were able to really take some gardening work from just passionate YMCA employees and bring that into a more structured program. So I believe it was 2023, we got our first grant from Mass Fresh, which allowed us to take some already existing garden beds and really vamp them up. We added two hoop houses, we added some garden beds to our Framingham branch. So under the Metro West YMCA, we have a Framingham location in the city and then we also have a Hopkington location, which is more rural. It has 122 acres. It's your typical outdoor camp center, and that's where most of our garden beds are. And then the grant also allowed us to hire Lindsey. So the most important piece here is that we have someone to do this amazing work with the space that we have been given. So take it to last year where we were able to merge these programs really, I guess even we've been doing the work, but we were part of the Farm to School Institute this past fall where we were able to sit down and really plan, okay, how do we connect our community with the kitchen and our classrooms? And that's what we're really excited to talk about today.

Dinah: This all sounds so exciting, and it's so interesting also to speak to you because you have an urban location and a rural location, and that's a really interesting mix to see how you bring those two settings together. So could you walk me through what Farm to early care programming looks like for your program? How does it show up in your day or week?

Karley: As Maggie mentioned in a previous grant, we were given the Dr. Yum curriculum, and this was created by a pediatrician, an early Ed director, a parent, a registered dietician, and then another professional in the field. And similar to Harvest of the Month, they highlight a different fruit and vegetable for the school year. We talk about how the food is grown, what superpowers it gives us. So when we talk about our carrots and they have vitamin A to help our eyes, if they know a carrot will help their eyesight, then that helps keep it relevant for their learning style and their speed. So once a month I go in as Dr. Yum to all of our classrooms. Again, we talk about how our food is grown, the superpowers, and then I'll make a simple recipe right in that classroom. So this past month with Harvest of the Month, it was kale. I taught them all about kale, how it's grown, the superpowers, and then we made a kale smoothie. So each classroom or table was given a piece of kale and they got to tear it off of the stem, measure four cups of it to add into the blender, peel a banana, add in some other fruit, and then right in front of their eyes, they saw kale transform into a smoothie. So just really cool and exciting stuff that we can do right in the classroom that's super feasible and that they can see, okay, a kale is a leaf, but now it's turned into a liquid. Whoa. And so that is Dr. Yum. I go in at the first week of the month to initiate that Harvest of the Month food, and then later in the month I will have a tabling event in our early learning center. So I'll talk more with the parents and engage them in the process as well to be like, Hey, I'm Dr. Yum, did your kid tell you what we did in class this month? I'll also post in the Facebook groups that we have for our early learning center just to show the parents again what we're doing in the program and just keeping them involved and engaged and then just supply more resources with recipes and handouts and things like that. And then Lindsey goes in separately and does her activities, so I'll let her speak more about that.

Lindsey: Yeah, so I go into the classrooms once per month and I run a curriculum called Plant Pals, and it's a mix of a few different things. I mostly use the Harvest of the month curriculum, and I also use different resources that were provided to us through Mass Farm to School and through the Root Ed Institute. And I kind of piece together what makes sense for the fruit or vegetable that we're highlighting that month. We do a lot of different things with Plant Pals. We read books, we do activities inside and outside, depending on the weather of course, but we like to do hands-on activities in the gardens. We have four teaching beds in Framingham, so we bring every classroom out to the gardens and they get about a 30 minute block to explore the garden, do our activity. I am very passionate about sustainable arts and crafts, so we do a lot of arts and crafts activities with the kids, and we play some games as well.

So it really just depends on what the Harvest of the Month is. And then I will go in and create a lesson plan based on that. For instance, this month is cranberries, so we're going to be stringing cranberry and dried fruit garlands, and then we're going to be doing an activity to see whether cranberries can sink or float. And then we'll be doing a taste test of cranberry applesauce that we've made. So it's really fun. It gets the kids outside, it gets them doing hands-on activities. It gets them learning about the environment and sustainability and ultimately where their food comes from. And it's been really fun so far.

Karley: And then to tie in the cafeteria portion of that, in our day to day, Maggie creates our menus and really emphasizes and highlights the Harvest of the Month. So she'll make sure that there's a little blurb about the Harvest of the Month fruit or vegetable, and then we're so grateful to have so many local organizations to work with from farms in the area. So whenever we have a fresh fruit or vegetable from Massachusetts or just anywhere local around us, we'll put a little sprout on our menu so that the families know when their kids are receiving a farm fresh fruit or vegetable.

Dinah: Thank you both for describing that work. Maggie, what do you think is unique about designing menus for very young children?

Maggie: That’s a great question. We're so used to making our older menus for our older students, so I find it very fun and rewarding to make our early learning center menus. I actually have a 15 month old who's in our early learning center, so I think that makes it even more special and a little bit more insightful for me of what a young eater actually needs. So we have about a hundred students in our early learning center. We have eight classrooms and we feed them breakfast, lunch, and a snack through the child and adult care food program, the CACFP program. What makes an early learning center's menu unique is that the menu can be creative, but it does have to remain somewhat familiar. So if we're trying a new Harvest of the Month recipe and we're putting something new, let's say butternut squash bread, right? That's familiar and it's fun because they know what a banana bread is, they know what a muffin is, but we're adding that fun twist to highlight our Harvest of the Month, butternut squash, we're putting some cranberries in it because we have those and it's seasonal, and so we can make it fun.

I'll use pears for an example. We just are coming out of a pear season. Karley introduced pears to them and made a pear fruit salad. We have pears as a snack on the menu. We made a pear oatmeal bake for breakfast, and then we sliced up pears and put them in a salad so they had a kale and pear salad. So they see us use one food many different ways, which we know helps increase their acceptability of a food. So that repetitive nature is something that's really helpful for early eaters and early learners. Obviously we have 13 month olds through five or six year olds, so we do have to do some menu modification, making sure if we're serving carrots for Harvest of the Month, that the little kids get theirs steamed, that we're cutting it appropriately and taking those extra steps. So we want everybody to be able to try the foods on our menu, but sometimes you do have to make those modifications with the younger ones, but we love doing that.

I will say another thing that is the key for any food program to be successful is the role models that our educators. So having a supportive inclusive environment around eating is really important. You can't just throw a plate in front of a group of kids and expect them to eat it. You have to encourage them in role model by sampling as well. So we have a really great group of educators who are doing a more family style eating where they're now passing around the foods, encouraging kids to use their fine motor skills of picking up their food and putting it on their plate. The language that our educators use is very important, and we've worked hard with them to make sure they're not saying, oh, yuck, I don't like green beans either. But to say, oh, we just don't like them yet. Let's try them today and see how we feel about them. Karley does a lot of work around, this is a crunchy carrot. It can be sweet, it can taste earthy. So I think the more language and curiosity we build around our foods and support them through their exposure is great. And we are very lucky to have an awesome team who is all on board for our food and nutrition.

Dinah: Maggie, could you also connect this to supporting families? You're talking a lot about introducing foods to new eaters. How does the teaching that you do at the Y go to the home so that families can help this process?

Maggie: So all the families do get our menus so they can see what our kids are eating every day. I know often, as I mentioned, my daughter's in the classroom so I can peek in and see what she eats, but sometimes I can't. I'm like, I wonder if she ate that chili today or what it may be. So our teachers do take pictures and they post it in the Facebook group so that families can see. And that's something we're actually working on improving, is taking a picture of the plates we're serving like pre-plating a plate so families can see, oh, that's how they serve their meals to the kids and things like that. But we do provide a handful of resources, recipes for families to try back at home with their kids. Karley and Lindsey mentioned a cranberry apple sauce, which is on our menus, so it's something we also provide a handout for so they could make it at home if they wanted with their students.

We have handouts on how to pack healthy lunchboxes and all of those wonderful things to support the families. And then like I mentioned earlier, Karley also does a Cooking with Little's class, which we offer to the parents and the child on weekends. And we actually just started it during the day. So if parents want, their children can go into a cooking class while they're at school and make all these awesome recipes with Karley, and then they get to take it home and they share it with their family. So we're doing a handful of things to support our families. And I think I left off, but Karley had mentioned that once a month she is in front of the parents. She sets up a table in the lobby where she says, here's kind of a reflection on what we did this month in the classroom. Here's how you can continue learning about kale at home together. She just last night was handing out learning how to do your Ks and kale matching games, and there's so many different types of kale and then recipes to go with that. So what we are really proud of is that students are learning about a food in the kitchen on their menus. They're learning about it in the classroom with our wonderful educators, and then we're also providing that take home lesson and that take home piece with recipes so that it's just more support at home.

Dinah: So when you think about how you influence young children's attitudes towards food and openness to try new things, how do you see farm to school activities such as gardening and cooking? How does it impact their attitudes towards food?

Lindsey: Yeah, I think that it has a huge positive impact on kids' attitudes. There are a lot more willing to try new foods if they have a hand in helping to grow them, and they're more familiar with it through taste testing and seeing it multiple times. I think that they get a really big sense of pride and wonder when they grow something or cook something themselves and they're more willing to try it because they put in so much work and they put in so much effort and they want to try the fruits of their labor. I think it also kind of takes away the mystery a little bit. If they see something and they're like, what the heck is that? They're not going to be as willing to try it. But if they see it start as a seed and they see it grow and they see it produce a vine and they see the flower bloom and they see the fruit start to be produced and then they get to harvest it themselves, the mystery's kind of taken away a little bit. And I think they're more willing to eat it and be adventurous. And I think that it's just a really great way to get them involved and empower them in their own choices. They're able to decide what they want to try, what they want to eat. And I think an example of that is Karley went into the classrooms and did a fruit salad for our pear Harvest of the Month, and part of the fruit salad just happened to be Kiwis. And she said that the kids saw the Kiwis and were really interested in them, and then they were actually on the menu that same day. And then for lunch, the kids loved the Kiwis and every single kid ate the Kiwis because they had just did a lesson that involved them earlier in the day. And then one activity we did on the gardening side of things was we brought in some corn on the cob, fresh from the farm still on the stalk, and they got to take the corn off the stalk, peel it and try it fresh. And the kids, they loved it. It was one of my favorite days. They had corn all over their faces. They were just so excited that they could eat this plant that they normally have to cook and take off the cob and stuff. So we were able to put corn on the cob on our menus when previously we had taken it off the cob for them, but then we realized that they love eating it straight from the plant. So that was really exciting. They became more familiar with it and they were excited to try it again and again.

Dinah: You mentioned a little bit already, but in what other ways do you engage families and community partners in your farm to school work?

Lindsey: Yeah, so every session I run a few different workshops around three or four. They have different themes, different activities, but again, it's hands-on things in the garden, it's sustainable crafts, different harvest and cooking classes. All ages are welcome in these workshops. And I have had a lot of families with young kids want to join. We've planted seeds, we've planted garlic bulbs, and it's just a great way to get people of all different ages and all walks of life to come together and participate in something that they love. And I think it's really great that we're able to have that space for people to join us. For instance, we do harvest and cooking classes where we have a chef on staff named Chef John, and we will go into the garden, harvest some produce, bring it inside, and he will lead us in a cooking class where we transform it into a really tasty recipe.

We also do volunteer days in the garden. We've had some really awesome ones in the past. This past Earth Day in April, we had a group come out. It was maybe about 12 people from a property group. And then we also had some families and some kids join us as well, and they helped me replace some of the garden beds that had gotten a little bit run down and worn through. So we replaced the beds. The kids were helping to put dirt into the beds and they painted rocks for us to use it as plant markers. So that was a really fun opportunity, but we could all get together. And then we also just had one with Ashland High School where the high school group came out and they helped harvest all of the tomatoes on the vine because winter was arriving. So we harvested all the tomatoes. We turned the red ones into a really nice tomato sauce, and we also turned the green ones into a green tomato and gelada sauce. So it was really fun. The kids loved harvesting all the tomatoes, coming inside and cooking with it. So we've been able to kind of join the community in that way of connecting people of all ages through one-off workshops.

Karley: And volunteers are a big aspect of how we are able to do a lot of this work. So within our plan for farm to school, we've started to initiate preservation parties. So at the end of the week, every Friday we might from our local partners, might have so many apples or so many butternut squashes that we can't use on the menu right away, but are going to use at some point. So volunteers are available to come into our kitchen, help us peel all of those apples and turn it into apple sauce, or as Lindsey mentioned, using those green tomatoes and turn them into enchilada sauce or anything like that. So we really try to not waste any of our product and make sure that it's all being used and just freezing it and then bringing it back when we need it. So volunteers are very important to all of our goals with this program.

Our families in our early learning centers are also really valuable to us. They are trusting us with their kids throughout the day and also want the best for 'em. So really getting their feedback and making sure that our curriculums and our initiatives for farm to school are aligned with what they're looking for. So we might be giving them a recipe that has way too many ingredients or uses equipment that they might not have. So working with our families and just making sure that we're supporting them and meeting them where they're at while also supporting this mission is really important as well. And we're able to do that through surveys, through our Facebook page and all of our tabling events to get in front of our families as well. And then the last piece is just our partnership with Boston Area Gleaners. So they go out to all of the farms and glean locally, and then we're able to be a recipient of all of that produce. So just this week we got 14 cases of beautiful apples. So just those partnerships with our local farms and our local companies are also really important to support our efforts in farm to school and local procurement.

Dinah: So you're sharing so much positive success and such exciting programs, and I'm curious to know if, and I bet listeners would be curious to know, especially if they're just starting out their program. What have been some of your biggest challenges in implementing farm to school programming and what strategies have helped you to address those challenges?

Maggie: Absolutely. So when we first started all of this work, one of our biggest things is we didn't want our educators, our teachers to feel like we were adding something onto their plate. We brought this awesome idea that we're so excited about, but for them, it's all about how we were relaying the message. We didn't want them to feel like, oh no, what are Maggie and Karley making me do now? So we had to really work with them. We joined their staff meetings first to introduce our ideas. We were present in all of our original classes and got feedback from the teachers because they were hesitant. What do you mean you want me to transition from a classroom out to a garden bed where my kids could run away and there's all of these, their hands are going to get dirty. So we had to really work with them and show them, no, this can be a really, really successful program, and there are so many benefits to their hands getting dirty into them, having access to green space and fresh air where many of these kids we know in our city aren't getting that.

So I think the biggest thing is all how you deliver the message and support that and support the vision. So now, fast forward two years, our educators are looking forward to it if we have to reschedule because of weather, they're devastated because the kids and the teachers love our nutrition and our gardening programs. So, I will say always include the educators in the process. Explain what you're going to do, be there to see, okay, yes, the kids could run. How do we enclose this space better? They do need some support transitioning to the garden, so I'm going to make sure I'm available to do that. So we are now a well-oiled machine and it is the highlight of the month. So there's definitely ways to overcome implementing new programs, but we know anytime something's new, there's always going to be a little bit of hesitation.

Another challenge that we've come across is in purchasing our farm share from Boston Gleaners and from local farms. Sometimes you don't know what you're going to get, so it's a little bit on the fly and there's a lot of fun, but there can be challenges in that making sure that we don't waste any food and that everything is getting utilized in our kitchen. So we did find at one point over the summer like, oh my goodness, we're not going through this food enough. We need to really get in and cook it. We don't have enough people to help with this. That's what started our preservation parties that Karley was talking about. We brought in volunteers who wanted to cook and be and help support our food programs. So now we have volunteers coming in to make sure that we can, if we can't eat the food whole, we're going to produce it to make soups, to make gravy, to make sauces, and we're going to freeze it or we're going to use it in another way.

So that's been helpful on the kitchen side of things. And then as far as early learning, going back to the education side of things, we teach children of all ages. So when we started going into an early learning center, learning how to really educate those children in a way that's best for them was a bit of a challenge. They have a shorter retention span, they like to move, so we had to adjust our lessons. So I think one of the biggest takeaways to overcome our challenges is to always have plan A, B, and C in your pocket– what works for one class might not work for the other, and you have to know your learners and what is going to work for them so that everyone has a positive experience. So we do some sitting time for the kids who need that to read a story. For the kids who like that hands-on, Karley has every equipment you could need for an early learner to be able to chop food, to peel food safely. Lindsey has garden beds of different sizes. If you're a student who doesn't want to get your hands dirty, here's an alternate activity for you to be doing. So it's just getting to know, I guess, who you're working with and how to best support them in their learning style has been a journey for us, but something that we're really proud of where we've gotten to.

Dinah: So could you speak to other learning or developmental gains that you've noticed when your children in your program participate in farm to school activities?

Lindsey: Yeah, I think that they have gained a lot of different skills doing this farm to school work and nutrition work. For instance, one really tangible is their fine motor skills that they're developing in the garden. We're handling seeds and we're poking holes and learning how to only put one seed hopefully in one hole, and we're learning how to lift the watering cans and evenly distribute the water, how to weed and pick different small plants from the ground. And all of this can help boost their confidence, and as they're developing these new skills and trying these new things that can really help them. Something else is that the kids are so smart and they're forming these mini hypotheses in their head because they're just so curious about how everything works in the garden. They're making so many connections between plants and animals and the environments that they're in, and even if they don't have the scientific language to accurately explain what's going on, they'll tell you in their own way that they're retaining this information and learning this information, and it's really awesome to see something else that they're learning is just about their actions and the consequences of their actions, whether good or bad, they're learning how to take care of the planet and that their good choices can lead to healthier ecosystems. 

They're always telling me, I saw trash on the ground and I picked it up because I don't want the animals to get hurt by eating it. And so they're making these connections that they can be a good steward and they can help take care of the planet. They're also really learning a lot about collaboration and teamwork and patience. Our garden is only so big and there's only so many teachers and educators, so they have to learn like, okay, I'm going to have to wait my turn and be patient, but I will get a chance to plant my seed or water my plant. So they're really learning how to share and how to make sure that everyone is having fun. I think it's also really beneficial just for their mood. There's a lot of scientific research that being outside and being in green spaces is wonderful for your mental health. Young kids are very energetic. They have a lot of big emotions, and so I think getting outside and doing this activity that can be really soothing and really engaging the body is just very good for their nervous systems and just to help regulate their mood. So I think that there's a lot of great gains that they can do. Not to mention just being physical and getting up and moving around in the garden is so helpful and they can help move their bodies in a fun way.

Dinah: You're all about two plus years into your program. What guidance would you offer to early childhood educators who might be listening, who are inspired by what you're sharing and would like to bring some farm to school elements in, but they don't even know, where do I start? This is feeling overwhelming.

Karley: Whenever we get an idea, we always want to just do it all right, then it's so exciting. We want to do everything for it that second. But I think the biggest piece is just start small. Start with what you have. If you're already serving apples for snack or just apple sauce, get in that fresh apple instead and just encourage those taste tests at snack time, they're already eating. Maybe hopefully all classrooms have a window sill. Start with planting a seed and watching it grow. A few years ago I did beans. Beans grow so quickly. So each kid got a bean, we put it in a wet paper towel and then in a bag and we taped it to the window. And with the sunlight and the water, they could watch their brain sprout grow. So just easy activities. You don't have to have all of the resources or all of the space or equipment, just start small and with what you can, and you don't have to think at all from your own head.

There's so many resources out there with Mass Farm to School, with Dr. Yum, with any other organization with these initiatives. The curriculum is out there. Just look for it and really just adapt it to what you have in your space. We never normally follow a curriculum to a T. We always have to adapt and change it to what's going to fit our space and our kids. So just look at those curriculums as frameworks and just go from there. The sky really is the limit, and anything that you're doing is going to be more than you might already be doing. So it's going to have a positive impact and just something new and exciting, and it just keeps that, keep your curiosity going and have a good attitude with it. Maggie had mentioned before, not everything is going to go perfectly and you might have to adapt, and that's okay just as long as you're being positive and upbeat and excited to educate these kids in a new way and incorporate new ideas.

Dinah: So the Metro West, YMCA is currently going through the Mass Farm to School Institute this year. How has participating in this institute supported your team or is it meeting your expectations and are there any unexpected outcomes that you're already starting to see?

Maggie: We cannot speak highly enough about being a part of this Institute. It's brought a lot of joy to our team and a lot of intention to what we're doing. And I think being part of this institute is kind of taking our own advice about getting outside your normal routine. We were able to get outside for our retreat in the fall and sit down as a group and a team and plan, which is something we don't usually have time to do to slow down and actually think, okay, we have so many things going on. How do we bring it all together to be more unified? So I think that's one of the things we're most grateful for, is just the time and the guidance we've received to be able to be intentional with what we're doing. We were able to set some goals, and we do meet monthly with our coach Safiyat, to be able to hold ourselves accountable.

And a lot of what we set for goals we're already well into doing, which we're really proud about. So one of our biggest goals was connecting our kitchen to our classrooms. We were doing local food on our menus, but we weren't connecting it to what Karley and Lindsey were teaching. Karley and Lindsey sometimes were teaching about different foods. So we use the Harvest of the Month as our guide to pick, okay, every month for the rest of the year, we know what we're going to be educating on. Here are the recipes we're going to put on our menus, here are the activities we're going to do in the classrooms. And just like that, we already have our year planned out.

Another goal that we set was to decrease the waste in our kitchen. It's something that happens, but we need to be better about that and better for our environment in general. So we're looking into composting. We have compost buckets ourselves, but with a production kitchen feeding 800 kids a day, we need a little bit more support. So finding an outside partner to come in and help with that. In addition to all of the wonderful preservation parties we're doing with volunteers, we're already well in our way to decreasing waste, which is something we're super proud about. And how cool that we can make those homemade soups and homemade sauces and be able to highlight them on our menus to say, this came from a farm right up the street, and we are able to eat it and enjoy its benefits. So that's another wonderful thing. There is another side to our preservation parties, which isn't necessarily with our early learning center, but we do have a food pantry that our early learning center families have access to.

So sometimes the food that we're preserving isn't necessarily being used on our menus, but we're using it to create meals and items that families can then take home with them to support them through the weekend when they're not here receiving breakfast, lunch and snack from us. So that's also something we're really proud to offer to our early learning center families and our YMCA members in general. Another thing that we have really benefited from as being part of the institute is the plethora of knowledge from our coaches, but also from the other members in the Institute. It's so nice to be able to talk from myself, other Food Service Directors and say the recipes that they're using that have been successful in their kitchen. I learned all about a chickpea masala that we then took and put on our menu, and it was a huge hit. So I was really grateful for the connections in that way and also for other educators and for Lindsey to learn how other people are growing food and able to work the land in different ways through greenhouses, hoop houses, in-ground, gardening, all of that. We learned so much in two days and are still learning so much. And I will say another part that's been really great is that the team doesn't leave you hanging. Hey, there's these webinars available to you this month. Did you sign up for this training that's coming up? I think it would be really great for your kitchen staff to attend. So the staff at Mass Farm to school know us and they know what we might need.

Dinah: Wow. Well, thank you for all of that. Maggie. Is there anything else about your farm to school experience or that I haven't asked you in this conversation that you'd love to share before we hang up?

Karley: Even our littlest learners and our littlest mouths that we have to feed can surprise us in big ways, and their engagement and excitement and farm to school activities just always just keeps us going. Whenever we're in the classrooms in there running up to us, Ms. Lindsey, Ms. Karley, Ms. Maggie, they know us now because we're in their classrooms all the time and they see us in the kitchen like, oh my gosh, you go there too. So just the engagement part of it has just really been just for rewarding, I think for all of us and hopefully for all of the kids and the families as well.

Lindsey: I think that it's so important to make sure that kids have access to the outdoors, to healthy food, and just to the joy that comes from those two things. It brings so much joy to my face to know that no matter what's going on at home, our kids have this opportunity with us. And I just think food is a human right, and I think green spaces is a human right, and so I'm really excited and happy to be part of this movement, to bring awareness that it's so important to get outside, to eat healthy, to connect to the earth, and I'm just really thankful that we have this opportunity to be with the kids and support them in their journey. With that,

Maggie: I'll just add that, like Karley kind of mentioned earlier, just never underestimate the power and curiosity behind your early learners. We're amazed every day at what they're able to do, and it doesn't have to be a huge activity. It can be as simple as sorting fruit and vegetables into different colors, and that can be so fun for them. So sometimes even the smallest things that you can bring to our early learners is the biggest thing and the most exciting thing for them. So start small and it can have a really big chain of effect on your kids.

Dinah: This podcast is a production of the Northeast Farm to School collaborative. For more information about this podcast or farm to school in the northeast, go to northeast Farm to school.org.