Far-Out Food Ventures

A TIMELINE HISTORY

·        August 2002: Mary Jo Dyre entered the Oprah, Big Dream Contest, submitting a dream that centered around The Learning Center!, a school Dyre had founded in 1983. The dream to address the nutritional needs of youth by reeducating them about the approach to food and by creating a school nutrition program committed to serving wholesome, fresh foods, placed Dyre as one of three winners out of 12,000 national applicants.

·        October 2002: Dyre had initial telephone contact with the “connections” made possible through the Oprah Big Dream Contest, including Dr. Nancy Creamer, Director, Center for Environmental Farming Systems, NCSU; Rick Curry, S.J., Ph.D., Founder and Artistic Director of the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped located in Manhattan and NTHW-Crosby in Belfast, Maine, including a full-service bakery and training school; and indirectly with Alice Waters, a visionary recognized for her influential work at Chez Panisse Restaurant in Berkeley, her commitment to sustainable, small-scale agriculture and her interest and endeavors with the Edible Schoolyard at the nearby Martin Luther King Middle School.

·        November 2002: 1) The Learning Center! started construction on the 7, 392 sq. ft. renovation project that would house the school’s commercial kitchen, dining commons and store front. Dyre had applied and received monies made available through a competitive grant offered by the Department of Public Instruction. 2) Dyre attended 17^th Annual Sustainable Agriculture Conference, as guest of Dr. Nancy Creamer, who, in turn, introduced Dyre to numerous contacts that Creamer felt would be of assistance in developing the school-supported agriculture project that had been originally submitted to the Oprah Dream Contest as part of the dream that Dyre hoped to accomplish.

·        December 2002: 1) Dyre and staff member Deborah Intemann began developing  the “Garden-Based Learning Program” designed to extend the environment of school’s classrooms into the garden, offering students the opportunity to get their hands into the dirt and experience the magic of seeds becoming plants.  2) At the invitations of Bro. Rick Curry, an Oprah connection, Dyre visited NTHW-Crosby in Belfast, Maine, spending time in the full-service bakery and training school, while learning the basics of the ordering  and shipping processes of the bakery business. Plans were made for Dyre to send an intern for further training in both the bakery and business management sometime in early 2003.

·        January 2003: 1) Implemented “Garden-Based Learning” in the K-5 program at The Learning Center! Charter School. Consulted with Emily Jackson, Growing Minds Project Director, Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project. 2) Nancy Creamer and a team of interns from NCSU, as part of the Oprah Connections, visited The Learning Center! inviting local Extension Service to join with the school as plans for developing a model of School System Supported Agriculture as well as developing a shared-use/value-added processing center through the school kitchen. 3) Began working with Smithson Mills, North Carolina Department of Agriculture, who is developing the Appalachian Food Ventures Project, a shared-use, value-added/processing/commercial kitchen facility in Asheville, NC.

·        February 2003: 1) At this point of development, a portion of the original dream submitted to the Oprah Dream Contest was officially established under the project title Far Out Food Ventures.  2) Started developing the plans for the school breakfast/lunch program that would be implemented with the opening of school year 2003-2004. 3) Communication with area small-farmers was established in an effort to coordinate a supply of fresh foods for the school’s nutrition program. 4) Dyre was invited to present Far Out Food Ventures to Duke Endowment’s Program for the Rural Carolinas. As a result of the presentation, two Far West Mountain Economic Development members who specialize in business/project development offered assistance to Dyre with project goals.

·        April 2003: Dyre spent a week in Berkeley, at the Edible Schoolyard at the Martin Luther King School and at Chez Panisse Restaurant, learning from the work put in place by Alice Waters.

·        May 2003: After further communication with Bro. Rick Curry’s staff and in consideration of the scheduling conflicts existing with both the BTHW-Crosby and the demands of the school’s construction project and the start of the school food service, Dyre asked for a postponement of the bakery internship and the contact with the Culinary Institute of America, with the idea of resuming the contact in the fall of 2003.  

·        June 2003: 1) Dyre began work with Debra Sloan, NCDA, on the final details of opening the new dining commons for an initial open house/dinner, with the school food service operating by early August.

·        July 2003: 1) School completed construction of the Dining Commons. 2) Dyre presented the project Far Out Food Ventures at the 6^th Annual North Carolina Charter School Conference. 3) As a result of the presentation,  Dr. Ben Matthews, Director, Division of School Support, NCDPI,  expressed an interest in learning more about the project.

·        August 2003: 1) School held open house for the dining commons and a dinner to officially present the project Far Out Food Ventures.  2) The school was awarded a grant through the Far West Mountain Economic Development Group to assist in the open house and official kick-off of the Far Out Food Ventures project.  3)Start-up of school breakfast and lunch programs, including Universal Breakfast  ( all students eat free).

·        September 2003: 1) Started development of the slow-to-go business designed to support the school food service. 2) Continued to work with Dr. Nancy Creamer, NCSU, to develop the bakery, the shared-use/value-added processing piece of the project and to build Far Out Food Ventures as a state/national model for School System Supported Agriculture.

·        School Year 2003-2004: As we put our nutrition principles into practice at The Learning Center! we realized that the typical school budget would never support the quality of nutrition program that had initially stirred Dyre’s dreams.  Added to this reality  was the fact that when a grant was not on our plate,  The Learning Center! was at the lowest end of the scale for school budgets, being a small charter school, located in a  rural area with a looming poverty rate.

·        School year 2004-2005:  Determined to feed our students in a manner that reflected “best health” practices, Dyre and staff began the tweaking process that would bring a halt to the slow-to-go and bakery components. The hope of creating the shared-use processing piece was stopped as the school could not afford the insurance coverage for non-school use of a school facility. The school year would offer no grants, no extra funds to put into the nutrition program that had so much potential but so little money behind it. The excitement of the Oprah Contest was soon forgotten by many that began to realize that Oprah had offered contacts and knowledge, but not funding. Dyre had not been given a fish, but she had, through Oprah’s connections, been learning more and more about fishing.  Not willing to give up, Dyre and a staff of dedicated people, made the decision to keep educating the kids. “Garden-Based Learning” continued to grow with parent and community volunteers. Soon “Garden-Based Learning” was expanding to include “Small Bites” Nutrition Lessons incorporated across the curriculum.  But the school was still struggling with what had always been our driving goal:  to not only teach kids about what and how they should eat, but to make this quality of food available to our students on a regular basis through our school nutrition service.

·        School Year 2004-2005 was our “back to the drawing board” year. Dyre and Nutrition Director Judith Bodley asked the hard questions of what could be cut to serve the quality of food that we knew must be served if we really wanted to implement “best health” practices in our school. Since we had made it through the set-up stage of our food service program, it was decided that we could cut some administrative costs. One doesn’t often find a Nutrition Director that will admit that she is no longer needed in a full-time capacity. But even with budget cuts, Dyre knew there was one more component that was missing. We had to find someone who could cook as if the school kitchen were the home kitchen. We had to find someone who would shop for the bargains but never lower the standards. We had to find someone who could crawl into the mindset of lower income families who just would not give up when it came to the health of their children. 

·        School year 2005-2006: The Dream is alive and well! Deborah Intemann joined The Learning Center! We like to add CC,BW after Ms. Intemann’s name. For some it might seem like an impressive degree. In reality, she is our chief cook and bottle washer.  She came to our nutrition staff with a degree in English education, a love of cooking, and a belief in sustainable agriculture that had lured her family to purchase a small farm where they raise foods for their own and now for their extended school family.  Presently, the only way we can make our nutrition budget work is to provide a delicate balance of fresh, quality foods alongside the USDA staple of the typical American school cafeteria.  However, we do not compromise when it comes to how foods are cooked.  “Best health” practices are always at the top of The Learning Center! list. You will find no fryer in our kitchen. You will find delicious meals, presented with the beauty and care of a fine restaurant as our students use real dishes and silverware. (Dishware that isn’t sitting in our landfills is yet another lesson that we teach!) You will see students asking for seconds from a salad bar that is stocked with something other than iceberg lettuce.  Just the other day, I had the pleasure of seeing one of our Green and Clean Grounds Keeping Volunteers working diligently as he planted lettuce in a raised bed that he had recently made on the campus.  

The Future? The school is dedicated to finding ways to buy more and more local, fresh foods. A parent volunteer has just completed a small greenhouse on our campus.  We have also started ordering organic foods for our Dining Commons and all other interested individuals through a local food co-op.  See the "Gatherers and Gleaners/TLC! Food  Co-op" page for more info.

We believe that nutrition must be a priority for our kids. With this belief we will continue to attract people of a like mindset. Yes, we believe we are what we eat. We will continue to strive to serve the best to our students, our staff and the parents, grandparents and community supporters that frequently visit our Dining Commons.

Other Learning Center! Programs that support the overall goals of Far Out Food Ventures:

·        Walk and Talk Fitness Group: parents meet at the school campus and then walk down to and through the walking trails in our local community park.

·        Green and Clean Grounds-Keeping Volunteers- parents, grandparents, community members and students who adopt plots of our grounds to green with plants, both ornamental and edible.

·        Garden-Based Learning- teacher lead classes that promote gardening across the curriculum as well as offering hands-on gardening experience to our students.

·        Smart Snacks - small bits of nutrition, environmental education mixed into the curriculum.  Full Course Lessons such as the Progressive Pumpkin offer extended seasonal lessons in nutrition.

·        P.E. Program offered daily.  Check out the Physical Education website link to see the accomplishments of our students.