Taste Washington Day 2021 – celebrating the farm to school connection

Amber Betts
WSDA Communications

All across the state this month, students tasted fruit and veggies grown right in their backyards by local farms as part of National Farm to School month. Many also participated in annual Taste Washington Day activities as a way to promote both the farm-to-school movement and Washington agriculture by serving local foods in school meals.

Coupeville schools, along with
many others across the state,
celebrated Farm to School Month
and Taste Washington Day. 

The activities to celebrate the month were as diverse as our schools and our farms.

WSDA Farm to School Purchasing Grant Specialist Annette Slonim saw this firsthand on Oct. 6, when she visited the Coupeville School District for Taste Washington Day.

More students there began eating school lunches when the Coupeville School District implemented the Connected Food program, focusing on scratch cooking and fresh, local ingredients. Student participation in the meal program increased from about 30 to 70 percent.

As part of the activities, Coupeville students enjoyed lamb from Bell’s Farm on Whidbey Island.

“It’s an incredible way to show our commitment to expanding economic opportunities for farmers while educating students about the connections between food, farming, health, and the environment,” Slonim said.

But Coupeville wasn’t the only district participating.

The Bellevue School District celebrated Taste Washington Day by adding kiwiberries, grown in Whatcom County, to the day’s selection of fruit. Kiwiberries look like kiwi fruit without the fuzzy hair on the skin and are the size of grapes.

The Dayton School District featured Honeycrisp apples and Bosc pears from Warren Orchards. And, in Bellingham, students were served a vegan chickpea masala, featuring garbanzo beans from Palouse, Washington. Middle and high school students ate salmon chowder featuring wild salmon from Lummi Island.

Schools across the state joined in on
integrating locally grown produce in their
school meals, including foods grown in their
veryown school garden. 

These are just a few of the many locally grown and raised food students enjoyed across the state.

Another feature of the month-long celebration was the Washington Apple Crunch, also held on Oct. 6. The aim is for participants around the state to crunch into their apples at the same moment as a way to highlight local growers and fresh fruit. Grandview School District in south central Washington gave out fresh apples from Magaña Farms to every student and staff member to take a big, crunchy bite! Pullman School District in eastern Washington also participated, crunching into organic Jonagold or Gala apples from Whitestone Mountain Orchard.  

Visit www.agr.wa.gov/FarmToSchool to learn more about how WSDA is incorporating local agriculture in the everyday lives of schoolchildren, one lunch at a time.

Washington students enjoy Taste Washington Day during National Farm to School month

Chris Iberle
Education and Outreach
Farm to School 

October is National Farm to School Month, and at many Washington state schools, it began with Taste Washington Day.

Salem Woods Elementary
lunch on Taste Washington Day.

This year, the event fell on Oct. 5th, as students and farmers came together to celebrate Washington agriculture. There were 45 school districts participating in this year’s Taste Washington Day, the sixth year of the event. That means at least 280,000 students ate seasonal, Washington-grown lunches and learned more about local food and farms.

Over 50 farmers signed up to be a part of the event, providing everything from apples to beef to cabbage, from watermelon radishes to zucchini. Beyond growing all kinds of tasty ingredients for the menu, farmers were guest speakers, set up displays in the cafeteria, did taste tests of their foods, and even gave interviews.

First lady Trudi Inslee and a
Pierce County Public Works educator
visit students on Taste Washington Day.

The event, officially proclaimed Taste Washington Day by Gov. Inslee, was organized by WSDA and the Washington School Nutrition Association with support from the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction and many regional Farm to School partner organizations.

The annual event brings schools and farms together so students can learn where our food comes from and how Washington farmers put food on our plates.

It’s also a chance for many farms to strengthen or form new partnerships selling food directly to schools.

First lady Trudi Inslee visited the Eatonville School District, where Washington-grown produce was on the menu and Mrs. Inslee could lunch with the kids. As part of the visit, Mrs. Inslee learned about Columbia Crest A-STEM academy’s green school initiatives and visited the new Kjalsted Valley Ohop Farm, where students will soon be able to learn on the farm each year thanks to the recent gifting of the farm to the Eatonville School District.

Celebrating Taste Washington Day

Nutrition staff at all of the participating schools served menus featuring foods from local farms.

• At Methow Valley Elementary, students enjoyed a lunch of beef, potatoes, cucumbers, onions, and greens from their own school garden, Red Shed Farm in Twisp, Tomlinson Farms, and homemade buns from Bluebird Grains. 
• At the Mead School District, students were served pluots, bell peppers, and green garbanzo beans from LINC Foods/Jackson Farms, Tabbers Farm, Delap Orchards, and Fresh Nature Foods. 
• While in the Wenatchee School District, the menu was sourced almost entirely from within 60 miles of the district, even including tilapia fish raised by a Wenatchee High School Student for school lunches.

At some school districts, Taste Washington Day was celebrated in other ways. Students at Lake Stevens School District brought applesauce from their own apple trees at home to share with classmates. Moses Lake School District invited dairy farmers to speak to students in the cafeteria about farming and healthy dairy foods like milk. The local news covered the activities at Ridgefield School District where Quackenbush Farms and Northwest Organic Produce visited schools to talk with students.

Students at Carnation Elementary 
taste produce from nearby Oxbow Farms.

Many schools like those in the Grandview and Evergreen school districts had big “Washington Apple Crunch” celebrations on Oct. 5. Students across the state “crunched” into their locally grown Washington apples all together at noon. WSDA and other organizations even joined in the fun, to make an apple crunch heard ‘round the country.’

A big thanks to all the school districts, farmers, and students who help make Taste Washington Day a success every year.

STAR-certified schools practice sustainable pest management

Juliann Barta

EPA Region 10*

What do control methods for discouraging pests (i.e. bugs and such) have to do with schools? Four school districts were recently recognized at a Seattle event for their sustainable pest management practices.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a common sense approach to managing pests that focuses on preventing the conditions that encourage them. On Oct. 1, Washington State University Extension convened a school IPM event that was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through a partnership with WSDA. 

Speakers and school district representatives at the
IPM school event on Oct. 1, 2015

Carrie Foss, WSU’s Urban IPM director, along with Dr. Thomas Green, president of the IPM Institute of North America, evaluated and recognized the school districts of Kelso, Mukilteo, Lake Washington and Federal Way Public Schools for receiving IPM Institute of North America STAR certification. 

Other districts in Washington noted for their IPM certification include Bellevue, Marysville, Colville, Pasco, Walla Walla, South Kitsap, North Thurston, and Vancouver Public Schools.

Dr. Green spoke at the event and talked about the benefits of IPM for schools. These include reducing the risk of pests and pesticide exposure, creating a healthier school environment for our children, and saving schools money in treatment and energy costs.   

Another speaker, Jim Jones, EPA's chief of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, said everyone has a role, from the federal government to school district staff, to make IPM a widespread practice. 

WSDA is on the Urban Pesticide Education Strategy Team, a group of state organizations that address urban pesticide issues in Washington. Visit www.schoolipm.wsu.edu to learn more about the team and school IPM resources. 

*Editor's note: EPA Region 10 submitted this post as a partner collaborating with WSDA to support IPM practices.