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 we have an opportunity to sit down with Ernie Koschmieder, the Food Service Director for Groton Public Schools in Groton, Connecticut. We're going to talk about the positive impacts of farm to school on students and families, and we're going to learn about an exciting shipping container Farm Grant from Connecticut Department of Agriculture and how the Container Farm will be used to increase food access for Groton Public School students. Welcome, Ernie. Thanks so much for coming to talk to me.

Ernie: Yes, good morning. My name is Ernie Koschmieder. Welcome, folks. I'm right here in Groton, Connecticut. I just want to talk about our farm to school. I just absolutely love it. It's one of my huge interests. I've been here at Groton Public Schools as the Food Service Director and now slash Farm to Table Director as well for 13 years, and our farm to school program really has started to really blossom over the last five years. It's really taken shape and just has exploded, and I just love it so much for our families, for our kids. This is what every school district in the country should be doing. So I'm thrilled that I was asked to speak today about the importance of farm to school and what it means for our children.

Dinah: Why do you think farm to school is so important and how does it play out in the work that you do in Groton?

Ernie: So believe it or not, there's children out there in my school district– I have seven schools- we’ve got 5,000 kids, right? So I have five elementary schools. You would be surprised how many elementary students don't know what a strawberry is, what a blueberry is, what broccoli is. Why does cauliflower and broccoli look very similar, but they're different colors? Et cetera. It's all about putting out a rainbow tray of veggies every day at all my schools. The menu may say today's vegetable is broccoli, but if that child doesn't like broccoli, we want 'em to have a choice of either cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, whatever. Right? The importance of, like I say, of just bringing in all these natural, fresh ingredients. It's building these little young minds, their little young bodies to be successful. We're getting 'em to try food at an early stage. We're teaching 'em about farming. Lord knows we're losing more farms every year. We need to change that. We need to change it. Groton is a military community. We have a submarine base where one of the parents is usually out to sea for months at a time. So for me to be able to provide these kids with fresh local stuff and getting 'em to try roasting vegetables, who says everything has to be steamed? No, roasting is my number one method of vegetables here in Groton, right? So the importance of showing families and kids, here's what we should be doing because it's the healthy right choice. I don't know what happens at home, but I know what happens for breakfast and lunch when these students are with us.

Dinah: So you're mentioning all of these vegetables that you serve in your school cafeterias. Where do they come from and how do you source these local foods?

Ernie: Number one, you have to figure out, do I have any farms that are local? The very first thing you got to do is set the stage. What is my definition of local? Some districts, oh, anything within 200 miles is local, as long as it's from Connecticut, it's local. In Groton, my definition of local is within 25 miles of my school district. That's what I call local. Sure, I can find stuff in Hartford, which is about an hour away from me. I can find stuff in Litchfield, which is about almost two hours away from me. Absolutely. But I have enough farms here. We're fortunate to have enough farms that are what we, within my 25 mile hour circle, if you will, and one of 'em is the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, which is Foxwoods Casino. They have a huge hydroponic farm. We're one of their customers.

So I'm utilizing different products from different farmers, finding lettuces, like I'm using lettuce year round from three different farms and now tomatoes, hydroponic that are Mashantucket is growing for us.They just got up and running in the last few months. Absolutely gorgeous. So these are what I'm saying about local purchases, and it's helping because my dollars are going to those struggling little farmers and some of them because they don't have the transportation, I have a truck who goes out and grabs the produce to bring back to the schools. That's probably one of the biggest deterrent from some local schools is, oh my God, we just have no way of getting the stuff to us.

But that's how the whole local thing has come about. That's how I do my purchasing and procuring, and it's that constant conversation that you have with that grower. Back in December, January, I'm sitting with the farmer saying, Hey, here's what I'll take from you, because they got to plan their crops. It just doesn't happen. I'll say, Hey, I'm going to buy a thousand of onions from you if you can get 'em for me. Oh, that's great. Now I know. I know how much seed to buy and stuff. I tell my lettuce person, I will guarantee take 250 heads a week from you if you can grow leaf lettuce for me. I got another grower who's doing spinach, another grower who's playing with romaine and red leaf lettuce. So we have these conversations because it helps them plan as part of the whole procurement with my guarantees that, Hey, I'm going to be buying this.

Dinah: So why is local so important to you?

Ernie: The whole important thing for me is I was born and raised in Groton. I love it here. I have the ability to use my USDA dollars that I get through reimbursements and stuff and apply them locally. I'm helping my local folks, farmers. That's huge and near to me, helping the small diversified farms. All these people that are struggling, they're just struggling. The other piece of that is it's such a huge marketing piece that school districts miss. I want this in everybody's face. My parents, I want them to know, Hey, we're not just doing sloppy joes at school anymore. We're doing fresh, whole natural things, scratch cooking. Sure, I can open up boxes of this and that. We don't do that. I don't believe in that. I want every kid in Groton treated as if they were my own or my own grandkids or my nieces or nephews. Every kid's suggestion, concern, Hey, I don't like this. I like this. We listen, right?  The health benefits certainly outweigh the cost, and sure things are a little bit more expensive to do local and purchase local. Absolutely. But is it worth it in the long run? Yes, it is.

Dinah: I was told that you have received a grant to get a shipping container. So can we talk about the shipping container farm that you're getting in Groton and how did this happen? And can you start from the beginning and walk us through the process?

Ernie: So, I'm going to start from the beginning. Before the shipping container came. When I came to Groton, we got seven schools. I immediately wanted to start changing things up, and we did that through school gardens. We put together school garden committees, which meant that each school had a representative or two who wanted to be on, who have an interest in gardens, who maybe have their own little farm or something. I had no problem getting people to join my farm to school team, and we meet monthly, and that grew to, we're going to build garden at one of our elementary schools. And it was we reached out to a community like community partners, foundations, banks, stuff like that to help donate money. We were able to raise $3,500 I think it was, to start to buy the lumber. We had some dads from some of the schools that were builders.

We had folks who owned a nursery who donated soil or gave it to us for cost. So it all just, we kept going from school to school to school and establishing. That was just when covid hitting was hitting and then things shut down. But when we came back, how cool was it that we had some school gardens, so now they were outdoor classrooms. Now all of a sudden, wow, that buzz was like, wow, look, we can take our class outside. Kids could sit next to each other. Holy mackerel! You would've thought we just invented this whole new thing. But it was just doing what any normal person would do. Why wouldn't kids want to be outside, number one, in a garden playing in the dirt and stuff? So our gardens have just done fantastic. Each garden has pollinator sections. They have all the stuff that's produced in the summer.

We have caretakers, if you will, which is families that come and how it works is whatever we grow goes, if the families that are there to pick and stuff, you can take it home as long as you're going to utilize it. When we have excess coming in, we take those, take 'em to our Groton social services department that has a little farm to school table set up that when people come in to get bread and stuff, now they can grab some fresh produce to take home free of charge. It's like they, they're giving gardens essentially, if you really want to look at it, because let's face it all, most of the stuff comes in when school is out, right? And then when school comes back in September, the tomatoes or herbs and stuff that are still there, we'll make salsas, we'll do taste testing with 'em.

So the stuff will get used in September primarily. So those all went, and then the success led us to asking where, we have a municipality owned utility company here in Groton. We asked them, listen, we're trying to establish a big greenhouse at our high school. It's going to be a classroom slash, you know, we want to start getting kids out for science because we're a STEM school. So to come out with environmental stuff, technology, science, that whole soil testing and stuff, and mitigating… it was that they donated $30,000 to me for this greenhouse which costs 45,000. So we were able to fund 5,000 of it through my department, and then we got some local donors to pony up the rest. We got this gorgeous, it's 60 feet by 30 feet. It's heated, all lighted. It has internet and everything. So we established one wall of it with a hydroponic indoor system, and that is, let me tell you the coolest thing we taught ourselves.

We didn't know much about it. We worked with Levo International, which is based in Hartford, Connecticut. They do a lot of city hydroponic and rural city, inner city, excuse me, inner city gardens, community gardens. They help establish those. So we were one of the first to work with 'em on a hydroponic indoor system, and we did got that going and kids, high school students, would work with it and learn about it. So I teamed up with Levo International once again because they got the knowledge on hydroponics and stuff. So the grant came out. It was worth $250,000 and because that's the estimate of getting the container, modifying the container, doing our own build of the container, because I had a few stipulations in there.

Again, I like things to be all inclusive for all children. So if you're a special needs student that's confined to a wheelchair, I did not want you to miss the benefits. So we had to modify the doors of the shipping container, so they were a little wider. It obviously has to have as close to the ground as possible. So we have a small ramp that's built, but I have a station when they go in the shipping container that's made for their height, they can bring their wheelchair right up and harvest the lettuce, replant a seedling, and be able to go in and do the testing to make sure the nutrients and stuff, just like the other students are going to do with the walls that are in this shipping container. So this shipping container, the way we designed is your average shipping container, which is like a full-size trailer truck just so the audience has an idea what I'm talking about. It's literally a shipping container that comes off a ship that is now repurposed. And because I think they look ugly, part of the grant is I want to do a really cool, put local on your tray wrapping around this thing, with fresh fruits and veggies, with some students’ characters on the side and stuff. I want this thing to be school friendly, kid friendly. I want people in the community to be aware and see it. This unit was made to produce 800 heads of lettuce a month and over 150 different herbs a month as well. So how it works is four weeks, the lettuce will be able to produce roughly 200 heads a week, which is great. This is 12 months a year. This grant enabled me to hire another farm to school dedicated person who's now going to be in charge of the shipping container.

I'm working with the USDA because once we get going, I would love to try to do squash, zucchini peppers, stuff like that, and process 'em, meaning take 'em into my processing kitchen, which I got another grant for one of my vacant schools process the peppers, meaning bag 'em up, flash freeze them. I want 'em in a special cardboard box that will be USDA approved. That's what I mean by working with them. I'm trying to write the user manual for school shipping container slash processing kitchens. So we're jumping in this, eyes open, reaching out to any partner we can find that instead of trying to recreate the wheels on all of this, I need to build a school USDA public school, USDA template on how to run one of these the right way. And the right way is because it's food that we're growing. I know one of the questions is going to be, what are you doing with the food that's grown?

Well, we're going to be using 'em in our schools, in our salads and stuff. Nowhere near enough I will be able to grow for the entire school, but supplementing with my local lettuces, it's a win-win, right? So the kids, because this is a teaching unit as well, think of it as a field trip classroom where I can bring my elementary kids over to the shipping container, which because of its size, I need to locate it. It's going to be located at my central office location. So it's not going to be at a school, but it's going to be at my central office location because it has the power, it has the tarred area that we need to set this on for leverage. It has water access and it has plenty of parking that I can bring bus loads of kids from other schools, field trips to this unit to see it. The kids will have to don a hair net when they come in as well as little foot booties to come in. Again, it is something where we're growing food to be consumed by students, so safety first. Those kids will all be given plastic gloves when they come in, their hair net, their booties, little smocks if you will. And they'll only be allowed groups of 10 kids at a time to come in.

And it is going to be a teaching learning moment, but it'll be an active thing that I've got grant money that's paying for this dedicated person to take care of. And I have another farm to school person who will be maintaining all the school gardens throughout the year and stuff as well. So that's about the staffing. 

But like I say, it's a teaching moment for our little kids, elementary and middle, and high school. Everyone's going to have play and have a part in this, and I want to market that to my parents as well. It just goes hand in hand with our mission of trying to provide the best that we can for farm products to our kids. So it's a whole circle from the gardens to the hydroponic to putting them on those serving lines, to purchasing from our local farms all over, keeping our dollars local and helping women owned farms, minority owned farms. I mean, that's what every district should be doing in this country, and I hope that people see what we're doing. We'll only encourage them to try it.

Dinah: Ernie, you're leaving me speechless. It's so fantastic. It's so exciting. Ernie, do you have any advice for food service staff and educators in other schools or districts who might be interested in getting into farm to school?

Ernie: So I am good at going out and finding grants, people who will support kids, and that's really not a hard sell when you throw kids in there. It really isn't. You just got to step out there and they're either going to say yes or they're going to say no, or hey, maybe come back next year. Okay, there's three things they'll tell you, and those are the three things. So I've learned to reach out to banks, especially my district uses one bank in town. Okay, you've got how many millions of our dollars sitting in there earning interest, that you're paying hardly nothing. Can you do some community outreach, right? Here's what I'm proposing. And I like to write up a proposal. I like to invite them, hey, can you come to one of my school gardens and we can talk about this, but you got to get your Superintendent or your top administration bought into this idea. They're only going to tell you, well, if you can find it, Ernie, get it put in Ernie with no money, get people who will actually go out there, do it. I say, yeah, right. As long as it doesn't involve me, cost me any money or anything like that, okay. And then like I say, most principals are pretty good. And I do think that things are changing now where more parents are involved, I hope. More involved with their kids at early stages. They see the positive things from having a school garden. They're more apt to, oh, okay, I don't have one, but maybe I can learn about it. I'd like to get my children to eat healthier. So those are all the aspects that I'm trying to get teachers and parents, and like I say, school Food Service Directors or school Food Service administrators, they're the ones that got to get this going.

And it's tough. Like I say, we all have enough on our plate– the last thing I wanted to, but when it takes shape and form and you have a passion of making sure that kids get the best nutrition, this is one of those big components. It's not a component, but it's a big component. I consider it big. Step over into the positive with me and get on my train of trying to get more of this into the schools at all grade levels, so I'm not just doing it at the elementary. When those elementary kids go to the middle, I want that to carry over. And when they get into high school, wow, now you've got some choices, kids, we got an international line, I've got a deli bar, every line has all kinds of fruits and veggies on it. So that's how I try to get educators, parents, teachers involved. And then anytime I have an event, I invite our local leaders such as our representatives, our state reps who represent my area. Persistence does pay off in the long run.

Dinah: So Ernie, is there anything that I didn't ask you that you would want to share with listeners?

Ernie: So as a parent, as a grandparent, again, there are people at school nutrition departments that only want to do the best, and I wish more did it, and that's just my opinion. But I know a lot of my colleagues in the state of Connecticut, and we all can be doing a lot more, but it's the support that we get from the parents and stuff. And as a parent, always, always send an email to your food service department with a suggestion, a recipe idea, a concern. That constant communication is huge. But I think I'm just so thrilled that I was able to do this podcast today. I think it's only spreading the word. I wish more schools were doing it, and I applaud all the people behind the scenes who are the farmers, who are the folks putting out the podcast, who are the folks that are trying to make regulations so that we use more local stuff. And I wish more states would put out local incentives, meaning to purchase local. There's not a lot of states that do that, but they're catching on. So I'm hoping the tide is changing where people are seeing how valuable farms and farmers are, and just trying their own little gardens at home and stuff. But there's people like Groton Public Schools who are doing farm to school, always reach out, do searches. We're not the experts, but our conversation would lend some type of subject that you're interested in. And I always pick up little pieces here and there and put 'em together. And that's created this whole wonderful puzzle that I love to do for our kids in Groton.

Dinah: Thanks so much, Ernie. Thanks so much for spending time with me, talking about your projects and your passion for farm to school and your passion to offer access and engagement to students and your community. So thank you. Thanks for sharing.

Ernie: Thank you.

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.