Farm to School: October 2026 Newsletter
Harvesting Connections: Celebrating National Farm to School Month
October marks National Farm to School Month, a nationwide celebration of the vibrant partnerships transforming cafeteria trays, classrooms, and communities. From school gardens bursting with fall harvests to scratch-cooked cafeteria favorites featuring locally sourced ingredients, this month honors the incredible collaboration between regional growers, dedicated food service professionals, educators, and students. Across our region, Farm to School is more than a seasonal event—it is a year-round commitment to nourishing young minds, strengthening regional farm viability, and building resilient local food systems. When schools source from area farmers and producers, every meal becomes an opportunity for hands-on learning, agricultural stewardship, and shared community pride.
Throughout October, we invite you to join us in honoring the farmers who grow our food, the nutrition teams who craft nourishing meals, and the students eager to explore new flavors. Together, we are cultivating healthier futures—one tray, one lesson, and one connection at a time.
October Procurement Highlight: Local Apples for Apple Crunch!
Bring the Crunch to Your Cafeteria with Region Roots Local Farm & Food Hub
October is finally here, and that means Apple Crunch Month is in full swing! We hope your nutrition teams are already having fun hosting crunch events, taste tests, and celebrations to highlight fresh, wholesome, locally grown food for your students. Participating in the Great Apple Crunch is one of our favorite ways to celebrate National Farm to School Month, connect kids directly to regional agriculture, and support our local orchards.
To help make your cafeteria's Apple Crunch celebrations a crisp, delicious success this month, Region Roots has an outstanding lineup of farm-fresh, locally grown apples available for purchase:
Pixie Crunch – Our smallest variety, perfectly sized for younger students, little hands, and quick snack times!
Amarillo Soul – Brand new from Garwood Orchards this year! An exciting new variety that’s perfect for cafeteria taste-tests.
Autumn Crisp – A delicious local favorite featuring exceptional crispness and a balanced, sweet flavor.
McIntosh – A familiar school favorite, but so much better when sourced fresh and local!
Gala – The classic, reliable "school lunch apple" that students know and love.
Blondee – A beautiful, sunny yellow apple that brings vibrant color and a sweet crunch to the lunch tray.
Jumbo Honeycrisp – A crowd favorite with a twist! About twice the size of a standard Honeycrisp—guaranteed to make a big, crunchy impression!
Ready to Place Your Orders?
If you have any questions about product availability, contact our Wholesale Partnerships Coordinator, Ashley Barry at ashley@nwifoodcouncil.org
October Harvest of the Month Recipe: Cinnamon Apple Crisp
This sweet apple crisp is filled with oats, brown sugar, apples and spices. Served warm, this dessert is the perfect treat on a chilly day!
Components: Fruit
Source: Healthy School Recipes (Sarasota County Schools)
Servings: 100
Crediting: ½ cup fruit, 0.25 oz grain equivalent
September Farm to School Highlights
Shucking Success: Hailmann Elementary Hosts 2nd Annual Fourth Grade Corn Husk-Off!
Hailmann Elementary School in LaPorte brought friendly competition and hands-on farm to school learning together for its 2nd Annual Fourth Grade Corn Husk-Off—and the fourth graders certainly did not disappoint! Students raced against the clock, shucking ear after ear of fresh, locally grown sweet corn. A huge congratulations goes to Mrs. Amor’s class, who out-shucked the competition to take home this year’s championship title! Best of all, the event was a model of local sustainability: absolutely nothing went to waste. While the corn husks were collected and donated to feed local horses, the sweet corn was cleaned, prepped, and served across district cafeterias that very week. Students who spent the morning shucking got to see the literal fruits—and vegetables—of their labor right on their lunch trays just days later. A big thank-you to LaPorte Director of Food Service Cindy Vondra and Veronica Jalomo from the Northwest Indiana Food Council for partnering to bring this beloved, high-energy tradition back for year two!
Celebrating the Harvest: Indiana Food Day at East Porter County Schools
East Porter County School Corporation celebrated Indiana Food Day this September by highlighting the state’s featured item of the year: fresh, Indiana-grown tomatoes! Cafeteria teams showcased the versatility of peak-season tomatoes with two delicious menu items: fresh sliced tomatoes to top school lunch burgers and house-made tomato bruschetta. The special lunch gave students a wonderful opportunity to taste the difference of farm-fresh produce and learn about local agriculture. A huge thank-you to the East Porter food service team for putting regional growers in the spotlight and bringing the Indiana harvest straight to the lunch tray!
Connecting Classrooms to the Soil: Highlights from the 2026 FarmHop Tour
The 2026 Farm to School FarmHop Tour hit the road across Northwest Indiana, bringing together aspiring young chefs from the Merrillville Schools Culinary Arts Department and future leaders from Forest Ridge Academy NJHS alongside passionate local advocates. Together, we traced the journey of food from seed to soil, right onto school lunch trays.
Stops celebrated the power and legacy of regional agriculture:
DeJong Farm (Merrillville): A family-run operation using integrated pest management to grow seasonal produce, flowers, pastured meats, and eggs—with the next generation actively learning the ropes in the field.
Garwood Orchards (LaPorte): A sixth-generation legacy farm since 1831, where students headed into the orchard for a classic U-pick apple harvest.
The tour culminated at LaPorte High School for an Indiana Food Day celebration. Food Service Director Cindy Vondra shared an inspiring look at the hands-on farm-to-school initiatives thriving across the district, showing what’s possible when school nutrition teams champion local procurement. To cap off the celebration, the LaPorte Food Service crew treated guests to an extraordinary, scratch-cooked lunch spotlighting Indiana’s featured crop of the year—peak-season local tomatoes:
Fresh-cut Caprese salad & crisp cucumber-tomato salad
Local sausage pizza featuring Fischer Farms sausage
Fresh-sliced tomato basil pizza
Region Roots ratatouille garden pizza loaded with local zucchini, summer squash, peppers, and onions
Thank you to Cindy Vondra, the LaPorte nutrition team, our host farmers, educators, and enthusiastic students for showing just how impactful local food in schools can be!
Grants up to $100k to make school meals more local, more nourishing, and more loved!
Do you know a way to make school meals more local, more nourishing, and more loved? If so, mark your calendar for October 30, 2026 — applications open then.
Soon, grant applications will open for the Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub! This initiative will offer grants up to $100,000 to collectives of farmers, food producers, school food authorities and others working to reimagine school meals in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
Learn more at InnovateSchoolFood.org
Indiana State Leads can help guide you through the application process. If you have any questions please reach out to us:
Veronica Jalomo – Farm to School Coordinator, veronica@nwifoodcouncil.org
Dr. Virginia Pleasant – Co Executive Director, virginia@nwifoodcouncil.org
See our office hours and fill our our interest form.
Questions or feedback about the program? We would love to hear from you! Reach out to Veronica Jalomo, Farm-to-School Coordinator: veronica@nwifoodcouncil.org, (765) 412-6136
