VT’s Summer Meals Feed Kids 12 Months of the Year

By Marissa Watson

Vermont’s Summer Meals program feeds kids at 293 sites across the state to ensure kids under 18 have access to healthy food twelve months of the year, decreasing the likelihood of a break in their nutrition and healthy development outside the school months. We partnered with the Agency of Education and Hunger Free Vermont to support five summer meals programs purchase local fruits and vegetables and provide nutrition education. These programs were chosen to receive mini-grants based on their location, population, and commitment to serving kids local, scratch-cooked meals with a nutrition education component. These are their stories:

Boys and Girls Club of Brattleboro

The Boys and Girls Club of Brattleboro served lunch and dinner throughout the summer in downtown Brattleboro. Their location places them next door to the Tuesday Farmer’s Market, to which their chef, Shantell Rizziano, takes kids once a week. Shantell and the kids pick out local vegetables and head back into the kitchen to cook dinner together, learning knife skills and culinary tricks of the trade.

Winooski’s Farmers Market

The Winooski’s Farmers Market provides kids 18 and under with free meals at the Sunday Winooski Farmers Market. Winooski's partnership is unique for two reasons: first, a diverse collection of community united to create this wonderfully educational and nutritious program; second, it's a summer meal offered on a Sunday – something we piloted last year and was continued by the Winooski Community Partnership. A UVM student club, The POP (Power of Produce), provide nutrition education and activities to kids during the markets, and the meals are prepared through the Winooski School District and the Abbey Group Management Company.

Camp Hochelaga

Camp Hochelaga is situated on Grand Isle’s beautiful shore of Lake Champlain. At capacity, their camp houses 120 day and overnight campers. Scholarships and transportation to and from Downtown Burlington are available to day campers to make the camp more accessible. Hannah Bogard leads children in nutrition activities, tying them into the mealtime experience. When they’re interested, she leads groups of campers into the garden, noting that sometimes the girls need a little nudging to weed an existing plot instead of planting a new one… we can all relate.

Albany Community School

Albany Community School’s Nancy Miller feeds summer program kids daily with locally grown and harvested products. Meanwhile, Rochelle Miller staffs the Summer Meals program, ensuring that the kids engage in nutrition education each day before mealtime. Children particularly enjoyed the ‘Colorful Plate’ activity (https://www.choosemyplate.gov/MyPlate), which had them placing fruits, vegetables, proteins, and grains into a well-balanced meal.

Highgate Apartment Complex

The Rainbow Flatbread Project is a collaboration of Doug Hemmings, Resident Activities Coordinator for Highgate Apartment Complex in Barre City, and Craig Locarno, Food Service Director with Fitz Vogt. Together, they created two make-your-own pizza lunches for kids and their families at Highgate. Before assembling colorful pizzas with tomatoes, peppers, and greens harvested from Bear Roots Farm, Joanne with Good Food Good Medicine took the kids, ages 6-10, into the garden to show them where their food comes from.

Mini-grants to each site were made possible by the Vermont Community Foundation. For more information about VT-FEED’s summer meals work, please contact Marissa Watson at [email protected].