Justin Williams is the Abbey Group site manager for the Lyndon Town School. Justin was recently invited to speak on Magic 97.7 about the Lyndon Town’s food service and all of the great nutritional offerings available. Click below to download the entire interview!
Starting this week, The Abbey Group will be buying all of our lettuce for the Barre, Montpelier, Rice and Winooski area schools from the Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponic (GMHH) farm in Waitsfield, Vermont. Green Mountain Harvest Hydroponics grows year round, chemical free produce in the Mad River Valley of Vermont. The proof is in the pudding, GMHH’s lettuce looks and tastes absolutely delicious. Make sure to stop by one of our schools in these areas to taste the difference for yourself.
What exactly is Hydroponics you ask?
Hydroponics is a method of growing vegetables in a mineral nutrient solutions in water rather than soil. This method allows for a plethora of benefits than traditional methods of farming. here are some of the key advantages to hydroponic farming:
* Eliminates water waste/harmful fertilizer runoff – a properly-designed hydroponic setup will use 10% of the water it would take to grown in soil outdoors.
* Minimizes land usage- a hydroponic greenhouse can produce as much plant matter as conventional field ten times the size.
* Minimizes or eliminates the use or herbicides and pesticides – in fact, most hydroponic locations are certified organic.
This Thanksgiving we celebrated the life of Jo-An Baillargeon, a dedicated Abbey employee who was more like family for us and at St. Albans city school, where she worked for over 30 years. A dedication ceremony was held in her honor of a wall of dancing vegetables she had dreamed of having months before she died. Read the whole article from the St. Albans Messenger here.City School Team USA article JoAnn
Abbey Group team member, Tina Bushey, and the NEI (Nutrition Education Institute) committee at Swanton School have worked extremely hard to develop and adhere to the rigorous nutrition and health guidelines needed to meet the criteria to achieve the gold standard for the Healthy US School Challenge. To put this into perspective, currently there is no other school in the state that has this distinction.
The HealthierUS School Challenge (HUSSC) establishes rigorous criteria for schools’ food quality, participation in meal programs, physical activity opportunities and nutrition education–the key components that make for healthy and active kids. This program is designed to bring promotion and support of good nutrition and physical activity from the entire school and greater community. All aspects of the school and cafeteria staffs are included in these efforts.
This nationwide award program, created by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2004, recognizes schools that create healthier school environments through their promotion of good nutrition and physical activity. Schools that are doing the very best work to keep kids healthy are recognized, and high-achieving schools even receive monetary incentives (information provided by the USDA website).
Tina Bushey, and the NEI (Nutrition Education Institute) committee at Swanton School were a big part of creating a brand new resource publication about school wellness. Make sure to click the link below to read this amazing guide.
http://education.vermont.gov/documents/EDU-School_Nutrition_Serving_Up_School_Culture.pdf
