Farm to School: September 2025 Newsletter
Farm to School: A Delicious Start to the School Year
The new school year is officially in full swing, and things are buzzing over at Region Roots! Our Farm to School Coordinator and Wholesale Partnership Coordinator have been working their magic, connecting K-12 schools and Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers with the freshest, most delicious food from our very own Region Roots Local Farm & Food Hub. We're talking farm-to-table goodness, right in the lunchroom!
Students have been enjoying a rainbow of locally grown treats. Just check out this awesome haul our schools have been ordering:
Sweet & Juicy Fruits: Peaches, apples, watermelons, nectarines, and cantaloupes
Crisp & Crunchy Veggies: Corn, basil, jalapeno and bell peppers, cherry and slicing tomatoes, onions, and cucumbers
Hearty Meats: Ground beef and pork shoulder
Tomatoes are in Season
Our local tomatoes, grown by dedicated farmers in our region, are ripe, juicy, and at the peak of their season. We have a delicious variety of locally grown tomatoes available now at Region Roots, including sweet cherry tomatoes, hearty romas, and classic slicers perfect for sandwiches. They are perfect for schools and early care and education sites participating in the Harvest of the Month Program! Check out the Community Partner Price List and snatch these tomatoes up and taste the difference that fresh, regional produce makes!
FEATURED RECIPES
You’ll love this easy egg bake with fresh broccoli, plenty of cheese, and topped with roasted cherry tomatoes. Colorful, delicious and easy to serve.
Components: Dark Green, Meat/Meat Alternate, Red/Orange, Vegetable
Source: Healthy School Recipes
Servings: 48
Crediting: 1 portion provides ½ a cup of vegetable (1/4 cup dark leafy green, 1/4 cup red/orange), 2 oz. eq. meat/meat alternate.
If you're looking for a refreshing salad, you've come to the right place! An amazing combination of fresh corn, sweet cherry tomatoes, fresh basil, and shredded cheese tossed in an oil and lemon juice dressing.
Components: Red/Orange, Starchy, Vegetable
Source: Healthy School Recipes
Servings: 48
Crediting: One portion provides 1⁄8 cup starchy vegetable and ¼ cup red/orange vegetable.
Corn and chickpeas add great texture and flavor to this green salad with romaine, tomato and carrots. A delicious, filling side salad.
Components: 3/4 cup vegetable (1/8 cup red/orange, 1/4 cup dark green, 1/8 cup beans/peas, 1/8 cup other and 1/8 cup starchy)
Source: Healthy School Recipes
Servings: 100
Crediting: 3/4 cup vegetable (1/8 cup red/orange, 1/4 cup dark green, 1/8 cup beans/peas, 1/8 cup other and 1/8 cup starchy)
A-Maize-ing Indiana: We’ve Got Corn!!!
We're kicking off the new school year with a true taste of home: local corn! This month, we're celebrating the golden, delicious bounty of our state with a "Corntastic" focus on this beloved vegetable. We're thrilled to feature local corn in all its glory, fresh from Indiana farms to your cafeteria.
For our schools participating in Indiana Food Day, get ready to make corn the star of the show! We encourage you to plan your menus and activities around this incredible local harvest. And for all our schools and Early Childhood Centers participating in the Harvest of the Month program, it's time to place your orders for this month's featured item. Let's make this back-to-school season a celebration of Indiana's best!
Haven’t registered for Indiana Food Day?
There's still plenty of time to get in on the fun and celebrate this Indiana delight. It's an incredible opportunity to showcase local food and get students excited about healthy eating.
Just click here to REGISTER and access all the amazing ideas and resources you'll need to make your celebration a huge success!
Here are a few fun ideas to get you started:
Taste Tests: Host a taste test of different corn dishes, from classic cornbread to a vibrant corn salad. Let the students vote for their favorite!
Corny Crafts: Get creative with corn! Use dried corn to make mosaics, jewelry, or even decorations for the cafeteria.
Corn Husking Competition: Turn the cafeteria into a competition zone with a good old-fashioned corn husking contest! See who can shuck the fastest and celebrate a piece of Indiana's farming heritage.
Meet a Farmer: See if you can connect with a local corn farmer (or another local producer!) to do a virtual or in-person Q&A with students.
Themed Menu: Create a special menu for the day that highlights corn in a variety of dishes, from lunch to snacks.
Remember, the celebration doesn't have to stop in August! While we enjoy the best of fresh sweet corn right now, you can continue to celebrate this Indiana staple all year long. Region Roots Local Farm & Food Hub is preparing to process corn into cobs and cobbettes that you can use throughout the fall months, ensuring a delicious taste of Indiana in your school meals well beyond the summer harvest. By preserving and using corn in different ways, you can keep the spirit of Indiana Food Day going all year!
Indiana Apple Crunch
What is the Great Apple Crunch?
Every year the Indiana Department of Education and Purdue University Extension create the “Crunch Heard Around the State”.
On any October date of your choice, Hoosiers come together for a delicious “CRUNCH!” to celebrate local agriculture's importance and fresh flavor. Groups of all ages are welcome!
The Indiana Great Apple Crunch encourages healthy eating and supports farm-to-school and other local food-purchasing initiatives across the state. Each year it is held in conjunction with Indiana Food Day, which also promotes the culinary diversity of our state.
DID YOU KNOW? Other states across the Midwest will also host their own “CRUNCH”, so you are adding to a regional effort to make an even louder impact on local foods!
Haven’t registered for Indiana Apple Crunch?
There's still plenty of time to get in on the fun and celebrate the Great Apple Crunch. It’s a fun way to connect food and agriculture to classroom learning. It’s also an ideal project to introduce more Indiana-sourced foods into your cafeteria’s menu and to expand your institution’s food procurement from area farmers!
Just click here to REGISTER and access all the amazing ideas and resources you'll need to make your CRUNCH a huge success!
Here are some fun ideas to celebrate!
Apple Taste Tests:
Host a taste test featuring different Indiana-grown apple varieties like Honey Crisp or Pixie Crunch.
Create a "flavor profile" chart for students to fill out, describing the apples' sweetness, tartness, and crunchiness. Let them vote for their favorite.
Extend the taste test to include different apple products like applesauce, apple cider, or dried apple slices, all sourced from local orchards.
Apple-Themed Crafts & Activities:
Apple Mosaics and Prints: Use sliced apples as stamps with red, green, and yellow paint to create murals or individual art projects.
Apple-Themed Story Time: Read books about apples and orchards. Some great titles include Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss or The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall.
Science Experiments: Conduct an experiment to see how different apple varieties brown at different rates after being sliced. Students can hypothesize and record their observations. You can also make a volcano with a hollowed-out apple and baking soda and vinegar.
Sowing the Seeds for October: A Guide to Planning for National Farm to School Month
October is National Farm to School Month! Join us and thousands of schools, early care and education sites, farms, communities and organizations across the country as we celebrate food education, school gardens and lunch trays filled with healthy, local ingredients. Here are several easy ways to get involved:
Be Inspired: Follow the National Farm to School Network on our blog, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to see inspiring examples of farm to school success and innovation.
Get Involved: Explore our national calendar of Farm to School Month events to see how you can celebrate in your state. If you are hosting events for Farm to School Month, we encourage you to submit them to the calendar!
View Official Merch: Visit our National Farm to School Month storefront for exclusive apparel, stationary, and more, specially designed to help you celebrate!
Spread the Word: Shout out about farm to school and share what you’re doing for National Farm to School Month with the hashtags #F2SMonth and #farmtoschool on social media.
Explore Resources: Check out our free resources for planning and promoting celebrations in your community, including our Farm to School Month Celebration Toolkit, customizable posters and bookmarks, stickers and more. This year, all of the Farm to School Month artwork on our posters, stickers, and bookmarks has been beautifully redesigned by artist Rachel Yumi Chung.
Growing for the Future
This year’s National Farm to School Month theme, Growing for the Future, emphasizes the role of farm to school and early care in creating thriving communities now and in the future. All of our futures depend on the farmers who feed us, take care of our soil and waterways, and protect seeds for the next harvest—but their work often goes unseen and undervalued. By investing in programs that support local farms, producers, and fishermen, and allow school meal programs across the country to easily buy directly from them, we can create a thriving food future that puts people and planet first.
Farm to school ensures that young children and students eat healthy, fresh, and locally grown meals in schools, and that farmers earn a reliable source of income by feeding their community.
Early Childhood Education Celebrates Harvest of the Month
We are excited to welcome all of our new Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers to the Farm to School program! This is a monumental step for ECE, and we are privileged to partner with you.
The new school year is in full swing, and our Farm to School Coordinator and Wholesale Partnership Coordinator have been busy connecting schools and ECE centers with the freshest food from Region Roots Local Farm & Food Hub. Since August 1, students have been enjoying a variety of locally grown fruits, vegetables, and meats. We are thrilled to see schools and ECEs joining the Harvest of the Month fun, a program supported by the Indiana Grown for Schools Network.
August's Harvest of the Month celebrated local corn, and it was a huge success! Lela Debose from Tradewinds gave us the sweetest scoop: students absolutely devoured both the corn and the peaches they ordered. The best part? They loved them so much, they even took some home to share with their families! These local products are perfect for meals, taste tests, and educational activities.
We are confident that by connecting children with local agriculture from an early age, we can help them develop healthy eating habits and a deeper appreciation for where their food comes from. We look forward to a fantastic and flavorful year ahead with all of you! Stay tuned for monthly updates. Here are some photos shared by Tradewinds Childcare
Funding Opportunity: Grow Indiana’s School Food System
The NWI Food Council is a part of the Lake Michigan School Food System Innovation Hub, which supports people working to improve school meals across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin. We are committed to providing our nation’s children nutritious meals that improve their health and set them up for bright futures. We aim to build a resilient food supply chain through innovation, and we aim to create a food system that develops nutritious foods for schools through industry partnerships.
This initiative offers funding, training, and other assistance to partnerships that include farmers, food producers, suppliers, distributors, schools, and organizations.
On October 15, 2025 we will open applications for two new funding opportunities: the Spark Awards and the Innovation Collaborative Awards.
Spark Awards fund projects that need a short-term infusion of funds for school food system and product improvements, such as capacity-building, planning, and product-testing projects. ($30K - $100K for one year)
Innovation Collaborative Awards fund projects that promote systems-level change of the school food system, such as scaling up of programs, forming regional partnerships, or developing or integrating new programs or products. ($250K - $500K for 2 ½ years)
Learn more about the grant opportunities on our website at InnovateSchoolFood.org
Indiana State Leads, Veronica Jalomo and Dr. Virginia Pleasant, will be able to answer your questions, help guide you through the application process, as well as connect you with partners and resources to bring your ideas to life.
Sign up for office hours here!
Questions or feedback about the program?
Would love to hear from you!
Reach out to Veronica Jalomo, Farm-to-School Coordinator,
veronica@nwifoodcouncil.org, (765) 412-6136
