 Well, good morning, everybody. It's Wednesday, the February 8th. And today is, but aren't you school day here at the cat toilet? It's really good to have you folks with us. And we'll get started. We've got a couple of hours that we can spend with you. And I know you play a very important part in feeding our children. And we've worked a lot with Senator Campion and the Ed Committee last year in regards to the universal meals program on the Senate side. If you have any input on that, certainly, glad to hear your take on it. And we've had some people in and, you know, most anything you do in the legislature, there's usually somebody that speaks against it. And, God, we can't seem to find anybody. And I think if I remember right last year, when we finally got to vote on that in the Senate, the vote was 29 to 1. It was really kind of a one-sided deal. And how we accomplished that was not from us, really. It was from people like yourselves that were out there promoting school meals and how important it is. And it was a fun project to work on. The success of it was, you know, terrific. And so anyway, I'm glad that you're here today. And hopefully this year we can get that to be a permanent issue. And, you know, and everybody is better off. The only complaint I've ever heard was those little rich kids don't need their meal paid for. Well, how many little rich kids are there in Vermont? You know, some that are better off than others. It's just as great that all children can go and have a good meal and a good breakfast. But anyway, we'll get started and hear from you. Do you want to lead off that? Sure, thank you. Yeah. And your help was really spectacular. I mean, we've been at this quite a lot of help. Quite a lot, yeah. Thank you so much, Chair. And thank you, Senators, for having us today. And my name is Betsy Rosenbluth. I'm the project director of Vermont Feed, which is a farm to school partnership of Shelburne Farms, where I'm located, and NOFA Vermont. And yes, today is Farm to School in Early Childhood Awareness Day. It was a little tricky this year getting students in the building. It's a lot going on in schools, as you know. But we have a list of, I think, some folks who can answer a lot of your questions and also live that experience and can talk about what's happening in the schools and early childhood programs. So we're going to focus today our remarks on the Farm to School and Early Childhood Grants program and the local purchasing incentive, which was passed just a couple of years ago. But happy, of course, to speak to the third leg of the stool, which is universal meals. And I think, as the Chair has often said, this is a win, win, win for Vermont. And we'll talk a little bit more about the impact that we're seeing most recently on our students, communities, and our farmers. So we are asking you today to support the Farm to School in Early Childhood program with a level-funded base appropriation of $500,000 for FY24, and to support the local purchasing incentive program at $500,000 in base funding. Vermont led the nation when we passed the Rosa McLaughlin Farm to School program back in 2007. So we were the first state to put in place a Farm to School grant program. And most states now have that in place or have legislation to create it. And it began by supporting schools with both technical assistance and the grant funds. So it's that combination that's really helped the participation. And what we've seen is over 200 grants have gone to early childhood programs in schools over the years. We continue to be national leaders in Farm to School when we expanded the Farm to School grants program to early childhood. Because, as we know, 90% of our brains are developed by the time we're five years old. So good nutrition is essential for healthy brain development. And if you think about 70%, I think, of very young children in Vermont are cared for outside of the home, it's really important to focus on the nutrition security of those kids and families that are being served by early childhood programs. And early childhood is when a children's food preferences are forming. So I'll never forget a story when I was up in Milton where they had a Farm to Early Childhood program for the preschool. And those kids, when they entered kindergarten, knew exactly how to go right up to that salad bar. They were picking things out. They were eating soup. You know, they knew right from the beginning, you know, this is what we're doing. And the parents, of course, appreciate that, right? It's much easier for the school to do it if you're a parent than to tell your kid to be eating sort of things. And then just a couple of years ago, when we passed a local foods incentive for schools, that really was meant to create an incentive. Our recent numbers show that schools are spending over $20 million purchasing food every year. So we really want more of those dollars staying with Vermont producers and Vermont farmers. And our own goal in the legislation, at one point, I think we could probably raise this, but was to reach 20% local purchasing. So if you think about 20% of that $20.2 million, it's significant. We also know from a UVM study that every dollar school spent buying local, $1.60 stays in the Vermont economy. So there's, you know, some, it's not the most lucrative market, but it's definitely an important market. And I think combined with other institutional markets. And we have some folks here today that can talk more about that. We also have over 100 farms in Vermont that are selling something to schools and early childhood programs. And that's all across the state, all of your counties and others as well. So just to go back to universal meals, we have the Farm to School Grants program. We've got the local foods incentive and the third piece is universal meals to ensure that there's equitable access to school meals for every student in every zip code in our state. Hopefully funded off the top of the education fund. So for many students around half, their daily calories come from school meals. So we know it's essential for their health and their learning and their success to have those nourishing meals. I know on school nutrition day you heard from a number of school nutrition directors about how universal meals this year has really shifted participation. We have Jim Birmingham here today from Montpelier District to talk more and about some of the other topics. But these three programs work together to integrate food access, food education and local purchasing. So that while we provide our kids critical nutrition, they're understanding what that food does for their bodies and their communities. And they're, you know, hopefully building healthy habits and connection to Vermont foods for a lifetime, all while benefiting our ag economy and our local farmers. And I think there's one quick story I would mention, and you might have heard me say that in talking to some of the staff at Sodexo up at UVM, when they see Vermont kids coming through Farm to School and the school system and they get to UVM, they're asking for fresh and local product. And that to me is really the testimony of this is with these kids. This is what we want every student to understand and be connected to. So, can you just say a little bit more about the local food grant amount? Because I, so I serve the chair of Senate and we're also partnering with this committee, hoping without a doubt to keep universal meals going. One of the best parts of it is people buying from local farms. It's huge. And so can you just remind us what that grant is at now and whether or not it's time to bump it up or, you know, where things are at. Right. So last year there was $500,000 in the budget for local food incentive. The first, that was the same as the first year. The first, the way the program is structured is there's a bit of an on ramp that schools can enter with a low bar and then over time. They can increase their purchasing and the way they document that to receive a higher incentive for a higher percent of purchasing. The first year we were so close to $500,000, it was $490 something. This year my co-worker here, Alan from NOFA Vermont, can talk a little bit more about there is a dip in the amount that qualified and we can talk about and explain why that happens. But we feel that it's the right number to continue because there's a number of reasons and I think we can't change the entire supply chain and purchasing immediately in a year. It's going to take a little bit of time, but we anticipate this will increase and you'll hear more testimony and that's really helpful. And that's why we had the hard way crew in, the gravel burrow crew in, because the distribution of Vermont grown and the processing of it, we're trying to ramp that up as well to help school staff be able to buy quantities that they can use up before it spoils. Exactly. And we have representatives of two of the food hubs here today that could talk about their experience and what the impact has been. Thank you. Okay, so Linda, there's this graphic here and I can send this around if you want. You've probably seen this, we call it the virtuous cycle and it's showing that that farm to school and universal meals increases participation in school meals, which improves revenues in the program, which allows more local purchasing, which leads to more participation. And then it's this positive reinforcing cycle and the three programs that we're talking about all contribute in a positive way to that growth in school meals and fresh and local food getting right into the bellies of our kids. So I'm happy to take questions. Let me just say that today you're going to hear from a number of us about the difference that farm to school and early childhood has made. We can take some questions after each speaker is probably, I would suggest a good way to do it because we're moving into House Ag. Some of us will leave and go to House Ag. It was hard to schedule today. Usually we have a big room and a joint here. Yeah, we're all sitting in there. Yeah. And my apologies, the kids aren't here to give you a taste test of their muffins and their hummus. Next year, next year that'll happen. And we have a number of handouts that Helen can send around that just a little more background on both the impact of farm to school and early childhood, the local foods incentives program is the second one. And just a couple photos because it's always nice to make it real and say this is what it looks like in the cafeteria and they know Jim can describe exactly what that looks like. No. And yeah, I might just end there. I know that if there are very specific questions on Universal Meals, 100 Free Vermont is here today. They're in House Ag on this topic, so they couldn't be in this room. But I know we can follow up on the Universal Meals questions. So thank you once again. We're looking for your support for full funding for both the local food incentive at 500,000 based funding and the farm to school and early childhood grants program at level funding based funding at 500,000. And as you know, the programs will support Vermont families, Vermont farmers and Vermont children. Is there any things or anything that we can do to make life better for our food issues that we all have? Well, certainly the focus on making Universal Meals permanent now is the most important thing. I think down in the future, we might come back and have more discussion about nutrition security with very young children. So we've put, as you said, over many years put in place some real system changes for the K-12 system. And I think if we can pass all of these pieces this year, we really will have changed that system. And I think, you know, future years thinking about what about families of very young children? It's a more difficult system, but we're making a lot of progress. So the farm to school and early childhood grants have been key for getting money to early childhood providers that might buy some equipment for their kitchen or set up a garden or develop a relationship with a farmer. So there's pieces we're putting in place, but I think in the future that might be something to pay attention to. Do you have any schools that need bigger coolers or things like that to be able to keep their fresh food longer? Is there, are there ways that they can get help to do that? Yeah, this morning we have a schedule of speakers. We're going to hear from Connor Floyd with the Vermont Agency of Education. And they've been involved with some equipment grants. Also, Gina is here from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture. They have grants that also sometimes can support equipment. So I would defer for them to answer, like, are we meeting the needs? Is there still further need? And we'll be able to answer that by the end of this morning a little bit better. Yeah, sounds good, Brian. Thanks, Mr. Chair. So the only thing, people keep coming to us and saying, hey, where are things with universal meals? So from, I know that the chair of AG and I have a meeting with the pro tem next week to just figure out what that path forward is. I just want people to know that we're on it. The chair has led on this effort for sure, without a doubt, for a long, long time. And certainly committed to doing whatever we possibly can to twist arms and control and talk to our colleagues. Thank you so much. And the evidence, like, we keep hearing is there. That's great. It's incredible. Where I was that made me a little bit tardy. I was talking with the chair of Health Sanctions. And they have the universal meals bill in their room. And so they're working on it there and then going to pass it to education. I told them, I said, well, the chair of Ed is on our committee. And I think we're just the opposite, possibly, in the Senate. The chair of Ed will bring it forward, knowing that we'll take it up right behind him and support himself. The new chair of the house is, you know, he's well aware of the importance. So they're all in a way. Perfect. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't know if this is directly to you or anyone else in the room, but someone asked me this week, what about meals for homeschoolers and people like that who are outside the public school system? Because COVID was very spoiling. Anybody under a certain age could pick up a meal at the school outside of your tent. And people are saying, whoa, now that I'm not in that public school system. Right. Yeah. Can I, is that something you can answer, Jim? Maybe introduce who you are. So my name's Jim Birmingham. I live in Y-ray, Vermont. I'm the food service director for the Montpelier Rocksbury School District. There were waivers that allowed us. And I guess as much as there were waivers is that we were operating during some of that pandemic interruption. We were operating under some of the summer meal feeding programs. We're giving waivers to allow us to use those rules and meal patterns to feed kids. That was how we sort of got around universal meals originally so that we could provide them. And those programs, because they're summer based, are targeted at children, zero to 18. And now that we're back to our traditional services and into our traditional national school breakfast and national school lunch program, those programs are aimed at kids in school. And those waivers that allowed us to use the summer meal program to feed all the kids are simply gone away. What comes summer? What comes summer? In eligible communities, summer meals are free through the SFSP, the school food summer program, and the SSO, a seamless summer option. So where there are communities and there are communities all around the state, which do do summer meals, those meals are free while those programs are being operated in between the school years. Okay. Right. I totally want to be supportive of school meals and all of it. You know, in March, and I'm speaking from my afternoon committee where I sit on appropriation, and I have the DCF budget that I have to look at. And in March, there's a major cut coming to three squares a month. And for those people that the 40,000 households that were under 185% of poverty, many of those families are going to be losing more than $100 a month. And those are the neediest people. And I, as we look at all of this and we expand food security, we're now doing less for people that are outside schools at home school, but this neediest part of our population is sitting there and about to take a huge fell. And I'm worried about that. Yeah, thank you. It's a huge concern. And I think that's, you know, our, Farm to School in Vermont, and we're not entirely unique, but I think definitely nationally, we have so integrated food access and local food together. And that's, you can't have one without the other. It doesn't make sense. And so paying attention to those families, removing stigma in the lunchroom so kids don't feel like they're not eating because of peer pressure or other reasons making sure that they feel safe and supported to be at least getting breakfast and lunch and in some schools after, you know, after school snacks and dinners even. It's really, it doesn't solve the problem that you raised, which is absolutely critical, but it does at least support those kids that have a chance to learn and not be distracted by hunger. Well, it is hard for me because when I look at that DCF budget, if you're a single parent, mostly single moms with two kids, your monthly check is about $860 a month and to lose $100 a month on the food supplement on site. I don't know how people can do that. Well, thank you, Beth G. Thank you. Gina, thank you. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I'm Gina. I'm with the Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets. I'm also going to distribute some materials here. This is our impact report for the farmers' photo chopper grants programs. Very good. Good morning. Welcome. Thanks for having me. So you tell us what you do. So I manage our grants programs at the Agency of Agriculture. So the grants program, as Betsy mentioned, started in 2007 and we offer annual grants to schools and really child care providers and also nonprofits on an annual basis. Since 2007, over 200 grants have been funded. $1.6 million has been invested in these farm-to-school and our childhood programs. And as Betsy had described, the focus is on connecting kids to where the food comes from, the people who grow it and the land that's produced on. And we also are really focused on the three C's of farm-to-school. So that's farm-to-school in the classroom, in the cafeteria and in the community. So there are three grants programs, as I described. The first one is the Farm-to-School Early Childhood Grant. And the second is the Community Supported Agriculture Grant with a CSA grant. And the third is the Vision Grant. The Farm-to-School Early Childhood Grant is the program's flagship funding opportunity. It's been around for a long time. It had slight adjustments, but it's this capacity-building grant that really focuses on both providing financial assistance. The award is an average of around $10,000 per recipient, as well as technical assistance. And that includes expertise in meal program viability, local procurement, school gardens, and also farm-to-school curriculum integration. Grantees are also supported with a coach who works with them one-on-one throughout the course of their project for planning and implementation. And this has been a really proven model within this grant program to provide schools of both financial assistance and the TA to really sustain and develop holistic farm-to-school programming across the three C's. And the second grant program is the Community Supported Agriculture Grant. This is a new grant that started in 2021, and it is specifically designed for early child care and after-school programs. And it provides a direct reimbursement of 80% of the costs of purchasing a CSA or a farm share from a nearby local farm. And then the programs can utilize that in their meal programming. Some provides food security in terms of sending some local food home to parents with recipes. So that's a really exciting, innovative program. It's run for two years now, and we're about to open the third round of applications here this month. And that's a smaller award too, I should say. The average is around $800 versus the $10,000 in a larger program. The third grant program is the Vision Grant program. And this is also a new grant program started in 2021 and is really focused on outside-of-the-box projects and efforts that can be scaled and replicated across the state to really address contemporary issues in farm-to-school. And that grant so far has funded one project per year. And the project this year is Beer Field Committees Center Association, there's a little spotlight on them at the end of their report. And that project is focused on food sovereignty and food security and connecting students with local farmers and farm workers in dairy farms. So that's kind of the high-level overview of the programs that we offer. I will say too that over the course of the last fiscal year, which closed out in June, we invested $190,000 across these three grant programs and providing technical assistance for the farm-to-school-of-the-child grant program. And our budget was increased as a result of legislature and Governor Scott last session. So that's fiscal year 2023. We have $500,000. And we are starting the process of working through that funding. So like I said, we have these three grant programs. The first one opened up in the fall and the other ones were made in January. And then we have two more grant programs, the CSA and the Vision Grant that will open this spring. So not all $500,000 has moved out the door yet, so we can report on all of that at this point. But we can definitely say that it's been really exciting to have this investment and already so far with the farm-to-school-of-the-child grant program, twice the number of grants were funded this year over last year. Nine out of 14 of those grants went to early child care providers. And another thing that's exciting is some of those projects were put forward by groups of early child care providers. And so in total, 48 early child care centers will engage with the farm-to-school-of-the-child grants program. And we still have these two other grant programs coming down the line in the spring. We anticipate awarding up to 60 CSA grants this year, which is over twice what we supported last year. And then we're allocating $150,000 to the Vision Grant program. So we're looking to not just support one high-impact innovative proposal, but several, and really look to support the fully state-of-the-farm-to-school-of-the-state. And yes, this is a really exciting time for the agency and our coaches program and for the network to have these additional resources and to be able to support a lot more educators to integrate these practices across the curriculum, the cafeteria, and the community. And do you know if... is that in the Ag's budget this year? The $500,000? In the governor's proposal, yes. It is. Keep it in the case today. That always makes it a lot easier. A lot easier. If the governor's on board, if it's really... you know, the agency's involved, it's really... it makes it really good because we should be all on the same page and working together. And I think this entire food program has worked that way pretty much. And, well, that's why we're somewhat successful. So are there questions for Gina? It seems great that it's... I think the only thing that I just keep hammering home is the more we can get, you know, the farmers connected to better. But I completely understand what you're saying, that there's time to increase that dollar amount and there isn't because, like what the chair said, gotta look at these distribution centers, et cetera. So I think we're on the right path and I'd be shocked if in five years that it's not, you know, schools aren't upwards to, like, 60%, 70% of people from local farms. But I'm a dreamer. You know me. So any other questions? What about... do you have anyone to help you over there or do you work with a group or how's that going? Yeah, so we have one staff person dedicated to the Farm to School program but, you know, there's support within the division grants. Grants management. We have a grant support person, Diana Ferguson, who is like our really good at, you know, writing grant agreements and doing a lot of that technical side of things in managing our grant system. So her and I together manage this program and there's a lot of partnerships as well. So a lot of the advising for our program actually comes from, you know, bringing up issues with all of these partners in the room that the Agency of Ag serves on the Farm to School and Childhood Coalition as well. And we get advising from them about how we can structure our grant programs better to meet the needs of grantees. Well, very good. Thanks for... That's a good publication. Thank you. Thank you so much. So we have a farmer on Zoom, Ashley, if you're ready, from the Middletown Springs Wells area and Ashley, you can introduce yourself. Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me here today for taking time to hear what I have to share with you. My name is Ashley Fierretti and I am from Middletown Springs, Vermont. I am the owner operator of Little Flower Farm, which is a small diversified farm raising eggs, produce and making maple syrup. I also have the pleasure of teaching at the Middletown Springs Elementary School and the Wells Village School. And I'm a part of the Wells Springs District Farm to School team because we were fortunate enough to get one of the Farm to School Early Childhood Education Grants last year. And I'm super nervous. Sorry. You're doing great. Yes. You don't want to be nervous around this crew. Thank you. Thank you. I, too, am asking that you please support the Farm to School and Early Childhood program with level funded base appropriation of $500,000 for the fiscal year 2024 and that you also support the local purchasing initiative program for schools at $500,000 in base funding. Both of these programs are really important to me, not only because my children attend Vermont schools, but because food in general, everything from eating it to growing it and food education are passions of mine. And they have been since I was a teenager. I think it's really an invaluable experience for students to be able to experience local foods in a tangible manner. The ability to grow food that has been served in our schools is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my life as a farmer. Without these programs, it would be a lot harder for this type of education and nutrition to take place in our local schools. And there wouldn't be such a strong connection, I think, between my farm and other local farms and our schools that we're feeding. Through our Farm to School grant, I am able to keep our school garden and the educational experiences that happen there going. It's really, it's hard to put a word on just the pure joy and excitement that I see watching kids get their hands in the soil to plant seeds or to transplant starts. When they harvest them, that pure joy is still there. And then to have them consume it in the cafeteria to feed themselves and others, it's just a really special, that whole process is so special to be a part of. And for students that don't have the opportunity to do that at their house or haven't been exposed to growing food before, the experience is really, it's life changing. I've been able to witness students making connections between where the food comes from and how they grow it to then feeding themselves and others. And again, it's just that raw joy of like, oh my gosh, I did this and I saw how it happened and now I'm sharing it with you. Through the grant, I'm also able to teach at both of the schools, the Middletown Springs Elementary School and the Wells Village School. I'm in each grade pre-K through six once a month, teaching about one locally grown food. And I use the harvest of the month resource and then mobile kitchens that our grant money helped us to assemble. It's really nice to be able to connect with other local farmers if I haven't grown the crop for the month. And then to be able to share that with students and to let them know that the food that we're going to explore using all five senses was grown either on my farm or a farm right down the road from some other farm within our state. Usually those farms are right down the road from one of the two schools, which is even more awesome. I really enjoy connecting the foods to all of their classes, math, English, literature, science, art and music because I think it's important for students to be exposed to food beyond what it looks like on their plate. I love traveling the globe with students to talk about where a food might have originated from, how it got to Vermont and the fact that other folks around the world are eating that same food at the same time or that we eat that same food just so that there is that world connection and that food connects us all together. It's fun to cook with the kids. They're all so excited every time I come in, they're like, what are we making this month and what's the food crop that we're using so to know that they're having fun while learning a life skill and they're not making that connection. I know that that's what's happening is really awesome. There's really no words to describe how great it feels when a student tries a food for the first time, especially if it's something that they started out saying, I don't like that. I don't eat that. Even if they just lick it, the bravery of trying something new because of the fact that they helped prepare that, it's truly a special experience. And the bonus is when the student who didn't like it or any student asks, can I get a copy of that recipe or a parent might approach me at a basketball game and tell me how much they enjoyed preparing that food with their family to share. It's not every day you get to hear that about kale chips, right? So I just, I feel like what I'm able to do and what other people are able to do through these farm to school grants is just such an important and vital part of the learning to know about where your food comes from, how to grow it, harvest it, prepare it, why it's good for you and your bodies, how it connects you to the world in addition to your local community. So I'm really grateful that our school was able to receive one of these grants. And I really hope that the program is going to be able to continue to be funded. And then finally, in regards to the local purchasing initiative, we are lucky enough at Middletown Springs that we still get to prepare our food in the cafeteria. And this initiative just makes it so much easier for our school nutrition person to procure those foods. And as a parent, knowing that there are locally sourced items on the menu makes me feel a whole lot better about my child eating school lunch. We're also lucky that our cook is really adventurous and so she'll take these local ingredients and turn them into something that is maybe not a traditional preparation, which I love because it just makes the kids more adventurous in their eating. So again, I'm asking you to support the Farm to School and Early Childhood Program with the $500,000 and the local purchasing initiative program with $500,000. I appreciate you taking time to hear what I had to say. And for having me here today, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. Well, thank you very much, Ashley. What great help in the garden are they the primary grade grades? Pre-K through sixth grade. Last year, each grade took one food or family of foods that we studied and they were responsible for planting that. And then this school year, when the school year started, that grade then harvested the food that they grew. And we had it one get together during the summer where numerous grades were represented. They came with their parents. And so everybody got to take something home to cook with at night. So it's all great. It's pre-K through sixth. It must be quite rewarding for the children to grow the food and then eat the very food they grew. Some different going to the local store and getting things from who knows for here. Yeah, definitely. Cool thing about having the parents come is that some of the parents had not experienced some of the varieties that we had or didn't know, you know, oh, that's how the cherry tomatoes grow or, yeah, so the education beyond just what the kids are getting, but what they're taking home to their parents. Like I say, that's the added bonus that it's going through the house, but the delivery is from the kids that are so excited about what we're doing. We miss that generation, but the next one coming, we should have them pretty well educated, hopefully. Yeah. Other questions? Yeah, actually, I'm kind of curious too, just to follow up a little bit. What crops are you growing at the school garden? And is there a potential that even when you involve some of the parents, they begin to grow their own garden at home? Oh, definitely. So some of the crops that we grow are cherry tomatoes, slicing tomatoes, carrots. We grew popcorn this past year. Yeah, right now. It's really fun. And it was the kids were trying to tell how tall they were up against the actual stocks themselves. We grew a lot of the herbs that the chef uses in the kitchen. We grew green beans and dried beans. The dried beans didn't work so well just because the weather last year was really funky. And then pollinator garden because we like to talk about the pollinators and how important they are to the food that we're eating. And we grew peppers too last year, because that was one of the foods that we talked about. Any other questions for Ashley? I think the chair's comment is right on. A lot of people my age, younger, maybe, I don't know, parents seem to have missed some of this. And it really is that next generation that's picking it up, which is great and really appreciate your involvement in that. Thank you. What else do you produce on your farm? I'm going to start with the vegetable and veggies. Cable veggies and eggs. Occasionally we've got a pig and some meat birds, but mostly it's the eggs in the, in the mixed veggies and the syrup. Yeah, great. Any, anyone down your way produce a local beef that goes to the program or the school program? Yes. I believe that actually there's a farm, just a mile down the road for me that has provided beef to the school. Yeah. That's really good. They're, you know, you're welcome to stay on Ashley and who would you like? And Connor Floyd. Are you able to hear me all right? Yep. That's great. So yeah, I'm Connor Floyd. I'm the grant program manager for the child nutrition programs team at the agency of education. And so my position was created in act 67 along with the local foods incentive. In addition to managing that program, I manage all the other child nutrition grants that we operate. I do some food service management company contract oversight as well as some physical oversight for the program. Before, before getting into the local foods incentive, I did just want to address that. Earlier question about equipment needs for schools. And so we do run two grant programs. One, which is state funded, another, which is federally funded each year to offer funds for equipment needs at schools. Typically it takes two rounds to spend the state funding. It's a little bit of a smaller amount of money. Which I think just makes it less popular with schools. Usually the federal funds are spent in one round. But so I'm sure a food service director is always going to tell you there's always equipment needs. And we provide a couple, a couple of different resources for them. But I'm sure Jim can speak more to those needs as well when he's up. So what I'll be covering is the local foods incentive. And I'm sure Jim will be able to do that. So what I'll be covering is the local foods incentive. And this is the, the second year of the program being implemented, although because it has that, the on ramp year, this is essentially the, the end of the first cycle, right. And so the baseline year is that first year that schools can apply. And there is an application, but really the application is to get the schools thinking about thinking about what they're going to need to be successful. It's more support versus like testing or anything like that. And so every application that's ever come in for our baseline year, we've approved, right? We might provide some technical assistance, but it's really to get schools ready. And then it's in that second year moving forward, right? So after that base year, every year after that is when we're asking schools to trap their local purchases and make sure they're hitting that at least 15 percent local purchasing threshold. And we're checking those applications, we're checking their tracking tool, asking for some invoices to make sure that what they're reporting is accurate there. As just a really quick overview of that program, so in the baseline year, schools that receive an award get 15 cents per lunch served. And then in the subsequent year, there's a tiered system. So 15 percent local purchasing will get 15 cents per lunch. Once you hit that 20 percent threshold, that award moves up to 20 cents per lunch. And then at 25 percent, there's 25 cents per lunch. And currently that's the highest tier. So there's three tiers there. All of this is included in the local foods incentive legislative report that was submitted back in January. But just some more overview here. Let's see. Yeah, so with this year being the first year of the subsequent year applications, right, when schools needed to be tracking and submitting their numbers, we tried to provide a lot of support. We ran a webinar with some food service directors in Vermont feed back in the summer, kind of explaining what the process was going to be, preparing schools for what applications were going to look like, what we are going to be requesting in terms of documentation. We put out, you know, multiple guidance resources on our website for schools. And we've also been working really closely with food service directors, the food hubs, and nonprofit partners as we're creating this grant program and figuring out, you know, exactly how's it going to run on the ground, right? We want to make sure that it's something that is, you know, has good program integrity, but is also manageable for schools. Food service directors are really busy. And so we recognize that we want to try to streamline, streamline things as much as possible and ensure we're not asking for unnecessary documentation or anything like that. Looking at this past year, I think two, two interesting points. One is, you know, what is local is always a big question, right? And so we use that Vermont local definition from the agency of agriculture. And it has three, you know, three classifications, which I'm sure you're familiar with the raw agricultural products, the processed foods, and then the unique food category. So that's what we are using when we're talking about local. There's a big question as to who's actually determining that though. And so the approach that we take is that we put that on the producer. And so either Vermont feed will collect kind of a letter from the producer, which they post on a public database, or if it's a really specific product, maybe it's just one food service director buying that, you know, salsa or something, they might go directly to the producer themselves. And so that we ask that there is some letter from the producer saying, yes, this is Vermont local. It meets the definition for this reason. And that's as far as we go. And that's the approach that we've currently been taking. It seems to be working. It is an extra step, right, in terms of another piece of paper. But there wasn't an existing structure of this is what's Vermont local and this is what isn't. And so we kind of had to create something from scratch there. And then the other point is just in terms of tracking tools, we did create two templates for schools to use two different options, one using their existing accounting system, and then one using an external spreadsheet template from Excel. We saw that, you know, schools use both of those. And there are also plenty of schools that just created their own system that worked for them. So it's just interesting to kind of work through how how each school handles things on their own. So looking at looking at numbers, right, and this year's results. We had 23 schools that were that were eligible to apply for a subsequent year award, right? So that meant last year, 23 schools applied for that baseline year and were approved. And so they were in the second year of the grant. So of those 23 schools that could have applied, we had six that applied and qualified for a grant award, right? So those are six subsequent year grantees. We had an additional nine that submitted numbers, right? They did all the tracking. They knew ahead of time that they weren't going to receive the award, but they did the work. And so they submitted that data, which we always appreciate. And so we included those numbers as well. And then we had eight schools that apply that were eligible to apply for a subsequent year, but decided not to, right? And so, presumably, either they weren't tracking from the beginning or they just saw their numbers that, hey, we're not going to qualify. It doesn't make sense to even submit an application for an application. We just ask for them to report a few extra lines of data in a financial report, which is a document we collect from every school. So we built that application into something they're already submitting to cut down on, you know, applications and things that they need to be submitting to us. And we tried to keep the info request as simple as possible. We had eight schools that applied for a baseline year for the first time, right? So those are schools that last year didn't engage with the program, but are feeling ready now. And so we have a larger pool next year of folks that might be trying to track local and getting to that 15% threshold. The highest local purchasing percentage that we had this year was 27%, which was Wyndham Northeast's local purchasing number. That's incredibly high. That's a really impressive number. And I think anyone, this is a personal opinion, but I think any school that applied and hit the 15% this year has likely been doing a lot of local purchasing for years past, right? This is a really hard ship to move. And so folks that are getting the award right now, it means that they've been doing this already. And I think as years continue to move on and schools shift their purchasing, we'll see more and more. But yeah, a school that's doing 25% local purchasing has been doing that for a long time at this point. Of the schools that did submit a subsequent year grant application, which in that they reported their local purchasing, we had right around $775,000 of Vermont local purchasing reported from those schools. So that's only the 15 schools that submitted an application, but that's a pretty sizable amount of Vermont local food that they've reported there. Yes. And so for this year, we had a total funding request of just under $340,000, right? And so that is to a previous question pretty well below that $500,000 program budget. But now that we are into kind of tracking local and, you know, the threshold of 15% is pretty high, I think that that's a reasonable place to be. My assumption is that in the coming years, more schools are going to start tailoring their purchasing or wanting to see funding requests coming closer to bumping up against that $500,000 amount. And, you know, hopefully eventually we start exceeding that. And the question is, you know, how high does this program need to be in order to be fully funded? And I think I will leave it there, but I'm happy to answer any questions or dig into any details that folks are interested in. Yes, Senator Palmer. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Connor, what happens to the other $120,000? Do you keep that or do you have to send it back, or how does that work? Good question. Currently, that just goes back. I'm not exactly sure where, but we don't keep that at the Agency of Education. So we're hoping that people do bump up against the $500, I guess, right? Because otherwise you're just sort of losing money. It does not, no, it does not roll over. And there have been, there was similar discussions last year about this, and there are some mechanisms for other things that you could do with those funds, right? We have, if you wanted to just any unused funds go to schools, there's a, we have funding mechanisms where you could just say, hey, any additional money gets evenly distributed amongst all the schools participating in the National School Lunch Program, and that could go after them as a payment to help their programs. You know, there's, yeah, there's no reason that that's what needs to happen. That's just what currently happens. Okay, thank you. Yeah. Other questions? Connor? Connor, do you, do you track like the, what does the premium that schools get, do you know what that adds up to? In terms of like what are their grant awards? Yeah, like the 15 cents extra meal or 20 cents extra meal or 25, because you had one school that showed it, the 25 cent, right? Yeah, that's, that's a great question. So I can kind of, so looking at that, we have two schools that hit that 25% threshold, right, which is the largest grant award amount at this point. And so they're both going to receive about, one's going to receive about $30,000 in a grant award. The other one will receive a $27,000 grant award. And that's based on their, the size of their school, the number of lunches they're serving. We have another school that hit the 15% threshold, but serves much more meals. And so they'll receive $48,000 as a grant award at 15 cents per meal. So that's, that's roughly, you know, I think anywhere between typically $15,000 to $40,000 is probably where most grant awards are falling at this point. Which is helpful, right, for the schools. That's good. Not real good. Any other questions? Very helpful. Thank you very much, Connor. Yeah, thank you for your time. Yeah. Yeah. Your next on my last. Yeah, mine too. So thank you. So my name is Jim Birmingham. I live in Waterbury, Vermont. I am the food service director for the Montpilier Rocksbury School District. And I'm going to read you my testimony today. What my goal is to try to draw connections between the funds that you are able to allocate to Farm to School and the way that we're able to see a direct benefit in us spending those dollars with Vermont farmers. So thank you for supporting universal free school meals for Vermont students this year. The benefits of universal meals are numerous and have led to a marked increase in the school, school meal participation in our district. This increase in participation has led to a corresponding increase in the amount of food that we are buying. And this increase represents an opportunity for farmers and producers who could benefit from supplying Vermont School meal programs. In this school year, Montpilier Rocksbury Public Schools have already purchased roughly $20,000 worth of fruits and vegetables, cheese, bread, maple syrups, and meat from Vermont farms and producers. Presently, we're working on soliciting bids from Vermont farms and producers for the products we will need to procure for next school year. For example, we're evaluating bids to procure 80 gallons of maple syrup for our cafeteria and 500 pounds of Vermont ground beef. This is looking ahead to the 23-24 school year. My understanding and application of the procurement regulations and the informal bid process that we need to go through in order to make these connections with Vermont farmers and buy these foods and bring them into our cafeterias, that understanding is a direct result of training that I've received from the Vermont Farm to School community. That training has been largely supported by grants funded by the Agency of Agriculture. And so this represents a clear example of the benefits of funding farm to school initiatives. Montpilier Rocksbury will be spending more money with Vermont producers as a direct result of the training supported by these grant funds. So for the benefit of Vermont students and food producers, please continue to support the farm to school and early childhood programs with the level funded base appropriation of $500,000 for the fiscal year 2024. The local foods incentive grant available to Vermont school food authorities has created a major shift in the way that school food directors think about spending and use to think about spending money and also utilizing their USDA commodity foods entitlements. I think it's important to note that school food directors have for many years focused their menu, their production and their purchasing plans on maximizing their use of those USDA commodity foods in order to reduce their food costs. The introduction of the local incentive grant has rapidly changed that mindset among food service directors. Now we're prioritizing local purchases that count towards the local incentive grant over USDA commodity foods. Whether food is available locally has become a much greater factor for food service directors when deciding how to allocate USDA entitlement funds as a direct result of the local incentive grant. This shift is not an easy one. Changing the purchasing paradigm takes time for school food authorities who make decisions on bids with local producers and USDA food allocations far in advance from right now working on next year's allocations. Our district was unsuccessful in our first attempt at reaching the local purchasing threshold for the grant award. We are continuing our efforts to increase our local purchases with the goal of successfully reaching the 15 percent threshold for local purchases in the future. An idea I have is for in future iterations of the local incentive grant it could be a benefit for a partial award to be allocated if there are still grant funds available which we just talked about O'Connor what we do with that the balance of funds. If a district like mine had tried to meet that threshold but fallen short if their funds were left I think that it would be a benefit to a district like mine to be able to receive a partial award say if we got to 12 percent maybe we could receive 12 cents per meal if the funding allowed. I think that that would encourage districts who are wary of trying to achieve that 15 percent. I think that people are maybe wary of even trying for fear of falling short and I think that using any fund balance in that grant in that way might you know spur people on I think to take a chance and try to get to that 15 percent. While not with the purview of this committee I do want to take this opportunity to say that one major shift that I think could create a major benefit for Vermont farmers and producers would be to move from the current system of USDA commodity foods entitlements to providing cash in lieu of commodities. Providing SFAs with their USDA entitlement as cash would allow SFAs to spend those funds with Vermont producers. Vermont food service tractors are looking for ways to reduce our dependence on USDA foods and maximize our use of the local incentive grant. This is a major paradigm shift that's been readily accepted by a group that has been historically wary of change. Having the opportunity to receive cash and move commodities would keep much of those funds in Vermont. Presently nearly all of the USDA funds awarded to Vermont schools go to out-of-state producers. The local food incentive grant has had a deep and immediate impact on many Vermont school food authorities. Our efforts to reimagine school food purchasing to maximize local purchases are ongoing. What is clear is that the local foods incentive grant is working and that more and more school food dollars are being spent in Vermont as a direct result of it. So I ask for the benefit of Vermont students and food producers, please support the local purchasing incentive program for schools at $500,000 in based funding. Thank you. The last issue you brought, the first issue you brought up about money being left on the table, that's a good idea. I don't know why we haven't done that, but if it just gets turned back in to the general fund then we reauthorize it again. It'd be better to use that money up and give those districts that got a leg up, but they just missed it by a little incentive to work harder to get the full amount. The issue of swapping out cash for commodity products, I doubt if we'd have anything to do with that because it's given, you know, there's so much of it that's just given to Vermont and so I don't know about that. I understand that. I thought that, you know, it's an idea that is popular among food service directors on part of a statewide USDA foods advisory group which is a group of food service directors and that's the way we would love to receive that money. And while I understand that it's not this committee's, you know, it doesn't have the ability to change that, it's an opportunity for me to speak publicly about it and at the very least I'll make you guys aware that it's something that we'd love to see. Senator Welch is on the U.S. Ag committee soldiers. Put it out there is an issue with the very, very worse we could make some noise. And you know if we, I mean that, a lot of that federal commodities food, isn't that loaded down with preservatives or salt? I'll say that we would prefer the quality of Vermont made products as opposed to the variable quality that we sometimes run into with commodity programs which are domestic products but they're not the quality that we, you know, associate with Vermont. And do you get choices on, can you kind of pick out what you want? With the USDA foods entitlements we are given, basically we're given a dollar amount and then we're given a catalog of products that we're able to order from to use those, use those entitlement dollars. And like I think it's important to note that that's a process that's happening now for next school year. So it's something that happens far in advance when we're allocating those USDA food dollars. The other issue that has come up, not today but in previous meetings, is that schools are having a harder time getting parents to fill out their income qualification papers so that we can get the maximize our federal hot lunch money. But how's that working at your schools? We absolutely collected a lot less applications this year than we did in years past. You know in in years past it's tough to speak to the specific numbers but I would approve, you know, North's words of a hundred applications and we would have, you know, a handful that were denied for being over. This year I think that I only approved 30, you know, so maybe only 30 percent of what had been but and I think that that's a direct result of people not feeling like they need to in order to get their free meal which I don't, you know, who we're operating in that provision to base year in our district and so we we encourage applications and I got a lot of applications from students of, you know, families in kindergarten and I denied a lot of applications that were over the limit which tells me that the message was out, the message was getting out to families to please submit these applications because the families knew the district were. But ultimately we've approved dramatically less applications for free meals than we have in previous years. See, what happens with, of course, if you don't if you don't get them then Rosie or the Ed agency doesn't get them and what it does is it shifts all the costs from the beds onto us and somehow we've got to figure out a way to entice parents to, you know, fill walls out. I don't, do you have to, what do you have to put on one of those applications? You know, there's the demographic information, your name and address, phone number, the number of residents, you know, how many people live in your household and what is your household income and and that's really, that's it. And then, you know, we approve it based on where the, or deny it, you know, based on the income limit. So it's not that it's an arduous process, I think that it's just something that people are able to skip and so they do. And I think it's a slide that we've been on for a few years now as eligibility is carried over and carried over from the 2019 school year, all the way until October of 2022, people were able to stay with that eligibility without having to fill out a new application. You know, beginning of October, all of those grandfathered applications expired and now we're ready to collect new ones, but people are getting their free meals anyway, so I think that's sort of the process. Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, Jim, how do you let the parents know? The parents are notified, you know, it's part of our regulations of how we do it. Parents are notified at the beginning of the school year, you know, they get a in the packet of information that they get from the beginning of the school year is what we call the invitation and instructions, which explains what the school level programs are and that they're available. It includes an application and also includes the instructions to fill out that application. You know, we also offer electronic applications as an option in our district, which is not something that every district does, but we're doing what we can to try to make it easier for folks, but I think that they just kind of don't feel motivated because the school meals are free. And so, yeah, I think that we're missing some of that information, and I think that the state of Vermont is paying for more meals than they would if we were using those eligibility. So, that's dependent on the kids themselves bringing that packet home? No, that comes, usually I get those directly from parents. You know, at the beginning of school year, they come into school and get turned into teachers and I get big packets of them. And then I also get the mail to me and scan to me, and they come through any way that a family can get them to me. They do. And it's not relying on the student. Its communication is happening with the families about getting those applications in. Thank you, Mr. Chair. When those parents get that form, what is the cover letter? Does it say, this is for people who want free meals or are eligible for meals? Or does it say, save the state of Vermont money to help us draw more federal funds? I mean, can we pitch it in a way that people feel more motivated and more patriotic about it than just putting it to an income level? Because I think that message may be getting lost if you're not already using it. I think that the food service directors and the people in this room are aware of that. You know, nobody else understands how much those meals are being paid for. Absolutely. I think that the invitation and instructions that we get as a template from the agency of education could absolutely be modified to explain why it is we're still collecting these applications. I think that the letter now tries to highlight some of the personal benefits, you know, reduce costs of Wi-Fi or, you know, internet or college application fees and some of those things. But potentially, I think that that's something to consider that there's other motivations for filling that application up too and saving the state money might be one that people listen to. So I think that is absolutely an opportunity. Like I said, that's a template that comes annually from the agency of education. So we can talk with Rosie or somebody over at the agency about maybe even bringing us a copy of that request. Because if we don't get that reimbursement from the feds, it's all it does is it drives on our property tax to cover that bill. And, you know, I think we're okay this year, but down the road, people are going to start, you know, our buddies are going to start saying, well, you guys got this program going. And now we are drawing this federal money because you didn't upgrade your requests from parents in a proper manner. And so we've got to figure that one out. Because that's the only downside I've heard of any shape to the universal meals. You know, you're not alone. I think it's across the whole state. I could only imagine, for sure. So any other questions for Jim? No, thank you for your time. Well, thank you for coming in. I wanted to ask you, too. How many extra meals have you had to put out? I would say that our meals served is up somewhere between 15 and 20%. It's hard to really know for sure because it's been so long since we had a normal year with the pandemic interruption. But from what we were doing, pre-pandemic to the meals that we're serving now, they're up 15 to 20%. Yeah, and what we've heard is 16%. So they're in the range. Yeah, we're right there. You know, it depends on if it's a popular meal or not. They like pizza, of course. Is that still Fridays? Yes. Well, that's really comforting to me. Hello? Yeah, I'm a little nervous. Of course, is it Monday? I don't know. I haven't been to school in six weeks. Thank you, Jim. Becca? Morning. Good morning. Thank you for having me. My name is Becca Perrin. I'm the Account Manager for Green Mountain Farm Direct. We're a local non-profit food hub based in Newport, Vermont. I'm one of two local non-profit food hubs that are here from today. So we're sort of the intermediary between schools and the farms themselves. So schools want to start purchasing local and not sure where to start or feel overwhelmed by the prospect of finding all these different farms to procure from. We make it an easy one-stop shop. Folks can order online from our ordering platform, put it in a cart, and then get delivered within a week. So we work with the farm, the Vermont-based farmers and food producers, and then we work with the schools to develop what they need from us and from the farms and provide technical assistance and marketing services. So I'm going to speak about the local purchasing incentive that Connor introduced and Jim spoke about and how that's affected our work and how we've seen that support both farmers and the schools that we work with. So I'm going to ask you to please support the farm of school and early childhood program with a level-funded based appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2024. Also please support the local purchasing incentive program for schools at $500,000 in base funding. Green Mountain Farm Direct, also known as Farm Direct, is a regional mission-driven food hub that partners with Vermont-based farmers and producers to provide affordable bulk local food to schools, institutions, and retailers across Northern and Central Vermont. So we would like to say that our distribution location is, if you carve a line, east to west, across Montpelier, we're north of there. That's where we distribute broadly. We currently regularly service 72 school accounts across 18 supervisory unions and five private schools and early childhood education centers. Farm Direct operates as an aggregation and distribution service, as well as providing marketing sales and technical assistance to our producer and customer partners. Every dollar that passes through Farm Direct supports Vermont's food businesses, provides Vermonters with fresh locally produced food, and strengthens the connections within our local food economy. Farm to School Programming and the local purchasing incentive help create a stable food system that includes schools and early childhood education centers. When the local purchasing incentive program was launched at the start of the 2021-2022 school year, schools like all of us were reeling from the COVID-19 pandemic. Farm Direct saw its sales from schools plummet dramatically during the 2020-2021 school year, a year that forced schools to pivot to to-go meals and for-go scratch cooking, which changed their procurement needs. The local purchasing incentive program felt like a lifeline, empowering supervisory unions to reinforce their budgets and reduce local purchasing. In the northeast kingdom, many schools are rural with enrollments under 100, and tiny procurement budgets for their kitchens. Given these barriers, local purchasing is often a challenge, but the local purchasing incentive is a direct response to that challenge. When Caledonia Central's supervisory union applied for a baseline year funding and received funds from the local purchasing incentive program in spring 2022, Farm Direct saw them bounce back better than ever into local procurement. They were able to work with Farm Direct to reinvest in their priority of purchasing local products and establish regular deliveries to their seven rural-based schools. As a result, Farm Direct sales of Vermont produced and grown food to Caledonia Central schools more than tripled in the 2021-2022 school year from the previous year. The seven Caledonia Central schools were all empowered to participate in our regular Harvest of the Month delivery program, which sends seasonal items to schools on a monthly basis for their use in menus and educational farm school programming. We also saw the Food Service Director for Cabot School, which has an enrollment of 158 students, increase their regular purchasing of locally-raised ground beef from beloved NEK meat producer Bro Slotterhouse in Troy, locally grown and stone ground wheat flour from Morningstar Farms in Glover, and carrots from Pete's Greens in Craftsbury. Serving local products in school cafeterias creates ample opportunities for connection between students and their local food system, as well as expanding their understanding of where food comes from. It also opens up new wholesale markets for our local producers who can rely on Farm Direct for technical assistance with their sales. Green Mountain Farm Direct saw its overall sales to school customers row by 25 percent between the 2020-2021 and 2021-2022 school years. All 52 of our Vermont-based farmers and food producers were directly benefited by the sales increase, but it was especially impactful to our small-scale vegetable growers like Joesburg Farm in St. Johnsbury, whose sales to schools more than tripled in that time period, Hartwood Farm in South Albany, whose schools sales quadrupled, and West Farm in Jeffersonville, whose schools sales also quadrupled. We know that these meaningful increases were directly supported by the local purchasing incentive program, which empowered schools to reinvest their budgets in the local food economy. So again, I ask you to please support the Farm School and Early Childhood Program and the local purchasing incentive program. These programs are critical to the ability for schools and early childhood programs to participate in and strengthen our local food system and create a sustainable food economy for all Vermonters. Thank you. Thank you. So do you find, do you deal with anything in the bidding or in the cost of local foods versus with truck from California foods? Absolutely. I'm wondering how do our local foods compare in cost, would you say? That's a really good question. That's the biggest barrier we deal with is competing with the costs of foods that are trucked from California, and the purchasing incentive is a huge help with that because it's easier in every, almost every sense for a food service director who's already overwhelmed with everything else they have to deal with to just pick order from Reinhardt which is the big distributor that just bring, they have a huge catalog, the prices are great, it increases their budget, they just choose that and it gets on the truck. So we compete with that with these grants and we're supported by them and we also like to provide, we're a tiny like service, so we like to provide really good customer service and technical assistance if they need it, whereas big companies like Reinhardt can't really do that, and then we also like to work with our producers to support them in offering products to schools. So a lot of times our producers will offer a different product, maybe like a seconds product that are like a kitchen-grade box of carrots, they wouldn't sell retail, they will sell that to schools, still an amazing locally grown box of carrots, but maybe they're funny shapes or like you know off sizes, so then they'll be able to offer those to schools at a lower price and it works for everyone and you see those carrots not go to waste. Yeah, you mentioned like bros and now do they operate through the Vermont Connecting Is that hardware? Those are, that's our trucking partner actually, so Food Connect, Farm Connects, CAE Farm Connects does all our trucking. It's hard to keep them all so we had them in a week or a week and a half ago and they were explaining half a dozen vehicles or whatever, going and keeping them from meeting each other or overlapping each other, you know it's quite a little job to do that, but they do quite a lot of processing there as well, like you can bring your care to save, have them all diced and bagged and ready to go. Yeah, Just Cut is their program that does the lightly processed vegetables. Yeah, we work with them, distribute their products. Do they pick up like bros meat and do it very depth of different schools when it needs to be adopted? Exactly. Thank you Mr. Chair. So I'm just thinking to myself here, wondering aloud I guess from here other way to say it, and you mentioned the farmer which is just a suggestion maybe with the packet that goes out that Jim had talked about, I would think if a farmer actually wrote a one sheet that explained how he or she would be benefited from an increase in the filling out of those forms and include that with somehow, to me that would, you see an increase I think in the number of families that are filling that out, which would offset the increase in property taxes as our chairman, just, I mean the idea is to get as many eligible people to fill it out as possible, and to me if you could make it more personal than just here's another form from the Agency of Education with all due respect to them, you know it's Farmer Jim and I lived down the road. Right. Maybe we could put that right at the bottom of the letter or the top of the letter help your local farmer. Fill that out. Eat local and then. Maybe show a little flowchart, you know. You fill out the form and some of this money comes from the feds to feed. Put a picture of the farm where the farmer runs. Oh my God we'd like to do that. Perfect, perfect. We'll have, we or Brian will have Rosie in from the Agency and we'll try to figure that out because yet we're going to hear about that eventually from our colleagues and you've got to get more people to sign them, you know, so we're sick and tired of feeding those old rich kids, you know, and start naming them, not many of them. You shouldn't have suggested that. Any other questions? Good job. Thank you. Thank you and thanks for coming down. Pretty good drive from Newport. Oh, I live in Johnson. Oh, you only have to go halfway then. That's morning Tom. Morning. I'm Tom Brugan and I work at Food Connects where a non-profit that operates farm school coaching services in southern Vermont as well as distributing 100 percent source of identified food into more than 60 schools throughout Vermont in the country in western Vermont. Are you out of Braille or? Yes. Yeah, okay. Good to have you with me. Fortunately I wasn't self-reliant, so it wasn't too bad, but yes. Today I ask that you please support the Farm to School and Early China program with a level funded basis for creation of the 500,000 for fiscal year 2024 as well as the local food center grant for LFI and 500,000 based funding. In support of this request, I'm here today to share a few stories of Vermont farms and produce students that have benefited from the local food center grant. Quick background, Food Connects operates a food hub that delivers 100 percent source of identified foods to wholesale customers throughout Vermont in the country in western mass. And in my role as institutional sales associate, I have the privilege of overseeing our Vermont public school accounts and supporting them with their purchasing. Every week, I talk with food service professionals about products Food Connects offers that meet the Vermont definition of local for the LFI. The first producer story to share highlights Wooden Farm. Food Connects started selling Wooden Farm beef in March 2021. Located in Cambridge, Vermont, Wooden Farm is a fifth generation family farm that offers grass fed grain finished beef. Farmer Mark Boyden cares deeply about serving public schools. He says the big thing is getting kids to expect local food and they keep that when they grow up. That's more important than sales. The next school year 2021 and 2022, Food Connects sold approximately $35,000 of Wooden Farm beef to Vermont public schools. Two districts were responsible for more than 45 percent of these orders. Wyndham Northeast Supervisory Union and Windsor Central Supervisory Union. Other districts that reapplied for the LFI, these districts have the two highest local purchasing percentages. Prior to the LFI, it was really difficult to sell Vermont local proteins to public schools primarily due to food service budgetary constraints. Now that schools have a financial incentive to source Vermont products, this barrier to entry has been greatly reduced. In fact, one of the easiest ways for Vermont public schools to increase their local purchasing is by sourcing Vermont center of the plate proteins like ground beef and patties. Another Vermont farm that highlights Grimond Orchards located in Putney, Vermont. Four generations of the Dara family have formed the hills that make up Grimond Orchards. This orchard was one of Food Connect's first partnering farms over a decade ago, so it's been especially rewarding to support the orchards' increased sales as a result of the LFI. Food Connect sold only $9,000 in apple sales in Vermont public schools in school year 2020 to 2021, and then approximately $48,500 in apple sales in the fall in school year. This represents a 400% increase. What were those years in 2022? 2020 to 2021, and $9,000, and then 2021 to 2022. And so 2021 to 2022 was really when the SFAs had the chance to be aware of this incentive and started breaking up their local sourcing. So that's a 400% increase. Did COVID-19 do that to you? Yes. So as Becca mentioned, prior to when COVID hit, there's an added effort to source local food. And so food service directors had to resort to just really prioritizing what needed to be done and something often reducing other additives, the sourcing including local food. What was the end increase in sales? About 49%. And we've already seeded $50,000 in apple sales this school year. It was only February. Andre Dara, owner of Greenland Orchards, is excited to sell more to Vermont schools, especially since Food Connect pays a fair market price compared to other customer outlets. And Andre and I are already in the planning stages to deliver more Greenland Orchard apples to Vermont schools for next year's harvest. Our hope is that at some point, every apple in a Vermont school will come from a Vermont orchard. Yeah. Yeah, we don't need to truck them from Vermont. It's not needed. We have here. Just think the dollars we save, or somebody saves on that diesel fuel. Yeah. So providing the requested funding for the LFI will help us get to this mission. While there have been more to choose from, the last producer story I'll highlight today is of True North Granola Founders Ingrid and Franklin Crisco. Based out of Gratibro, Vermont, Ingrid and Franklin are lifelong educators in recognizing the importance of healthy foods in schools. Because of the LFI, Wyndham Southeast SU began purchasing their gluten-free, no nuts maple vanilla granola. While Food Connect only sold $30 of True North Granola to all Vermont public schools in swir 2020 to 2021, we sold more than 7,000 in the fall in school year. I can continue to share more stories demonstrating the beneficial social and economic impacts of the LFI from purchasing new products, from our existing producer base, like Vermont's only need bulk sausage, to onboarding new producers altogether including Cabot. I've seen firsthand how the LFI continues to strengthen the local food economy. By supporting the local food incentive grant of $500,000 in base funding, you have the opportunity to ensure that our children have access to a diversified range of local, nutritious foods while providing sustainable market for our Vermont farmers, from our farmers to our children that LFI is a women. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you, Tom. You said $30 to $9,000? Yeah, yeah. It's quite a job. And that's a little more than 47%. Yeah. And then it just goes to the process granola before the incentive. It just kind of prepares that price threshold that was just unmanageable for schools. But then they saw it differently. And of course, to sell all those apples somewhere rather than to home, you've got to be transported out of here. And you know, that costs money. Yeah. And so the benefits, the true benefits, had never been really measured on, you know, the difference in buying from Reinhardt or local, you know, there's a spread there where you can get cheaper from there right now. But the additional cost of the roads and the wear and tear and taking money from Vermonters, exporting it out of state instead of keeping it here and rotating between us, you know, if you figured all that in, I bet it's way cheaper to buy a harrow than a coat full. And we know what we're getting. Exactly. Yeah. You know, talking about apples, you said Darrell's still on that? Andrea Darrell. Darrell. Yeah, the Darrell family. Yeah, Steve Darrell used to be here in the legislature with us and in a senior year, I don't recall his name, but the father, he was a commissioner back. I mean, that family goes back a long, long, long way. But you ought to get your beef from Rose Market. I'm really aware of that. Now, Boyd was doing a great job up there. I personally approve of Blaine. And of course, I was certainly joking. Yes. Long distance Vermont, Gown, I buy it anyway. So you serve us a lot of schools. Yeah. So over 60 schools throughout Vermont, we have too much to notice. And then a lot of other retail and apple sale accounts as well. Yeah. These two other states are, I don't know where they're located. Do they have any type of a local grown system in their schools? In New Hampshire, it's up for self-work discussion with the legislature right now. It's similar type of model incentivizing local purchasing, so we hope that'll get approved. And you folks also work with the crew in Rotland some? Yeah, the VFFC, Vermont Farm and Food Center. Yes, yeah. So really the Vermont food hubs, we all interconnect and we try to support our common goal. Yeah, same approach. Could we have them live somewhere in front of Brownville? Yeah, we did. Richard, Richard Perfield? I don't remember. But the distribution of our Vermont products is key to making this all work in a smooth way for our hot lunch people because if they can't get the food, they're going to pick up the phone they got to have the food and so that it's good that you folks are doing AirShare. Any questions? Well, thank you, Tom. Thank you for being with us. Helen. All right. You can wait. Yeah, I'm here to bring up the rear and I'm very happy to do so. Thank you so much for having all of us here with you this morning. It's been wonderful to listen to these conversations and just reflect on the really significant impact of both the grants program and the local foods incentive. So for the record, my name is Helen Virgbet and I am the Farm to School and Food Access Programs Director at NOPA Vermont. And together with Betsy Rosenbluth, who we heard from earlier this morning, I co-lead the Vermont Feed Project. So I want to share just a little bit more just to drive home the point about why this local foods incentive grant program is so important and why it shows us is why it's showing so much promise. As Betsy mentioned earlier today, schools in Vermont spent approximately $20 million on food last school year to provide approximately 17 million meals to Vermont kids. So that math is relatively simple, though I'm not going to do it in my head immediately in front of you, but it's pretty close to a little more than a dollar per meal. School nutrition professionals have been telling us for years that they want to buy more local foods. And you heard from Jim that this has been, you know, a goal and some schools have been working on it for years and years and others have felt constrained. But with little more than a dollar to spend per plate, they lacked sufficient funds to do so on a more meaningful scale. So this local foods incentive provides school nutrition programs with much needed financial resources. And what's more, it really encourages them to put Vermont farmers and producers first when making decisions like you've heard from Jim and some stories from our Food Hub partners already. Now, in just the second year of the local foods incentive program, 31 of Vermont's 51 SFA school food authorities have participated either through that on-ramp baseline year, which is a supported year to kind of get your systems in order, or by applying for that subsequent year grant where you are required to submit your tracking and document your local purchases. So that's 60% of the SFA's in the state already, just in year two, which feels pretty good. We have identified a variety of local products that schools are buying. You've heard from our Food Hub partners about the range of products from dairy to meat and poultry, maple, baked products, and more. So this is positively affecting all kinds of Vermont producers. It's not just one type of producer that's taking the whole slice of the pie here. The SFA's that were successful in achieving the 15% threshold and those that applied but didn't quite get there, together they spent over $775,000 on Vermont local foods last year. And that's actually more than double the $340,000 we'll be giving out in grant awards through this program this year. So that's a pretty remarkable two-to-one early return on this investment. And I think we'll just see those numbers continue to grow into the future. Act 67 of 2021, which established the local foods incentive grant program, states that it is the goal of the state that by the year 2023, which I think we're in right now, if I'm not mistaken, at least 20% of the food schools purchased would be locally produced. And while we're not quite there yet, we're still working out some tracking mechanisms and certainly supply chain shifts. We've made really significant strides forward in relatively short order. And as Jim and others have spoken to, the institutional supply chain does take time to respond. You can't just pull the switch here. It takes time for school nutrition programs to set up new purchasing relationships and tracking systems. And yet we see the relatively high participation rate in those baseline year grants and the notable number of SFA's that went so far as to submit their subsequent year application but fell a little bit short as a really clear expression of demand and support for this and need for this program among schools. On the demand side, my colleagues and when I really just lift up and shout out Kayla Strom here, she has been a real, real asset in this respect. We've been providing a lot of support and technical assistance as Wilfa and Vermont feed directly to schools that are wanting to have community health navigating the ins and outs of the program, support connecting to local producers, et cetera. And then also on the supply side, we've been working with those local producers connecting with our friends in the food hubs and distributors to improve schools access to and awareness of those local foods. So the local foods incentive has already proven to be a really powerful tool in catalyzing a shift towards purchasing more of the Vermont schools. I'm confident that within a few years we'll see at least 15% local purchasing become more of the norm than the outlier in Vermont schools. So to scale back a little bit and focus on the even bigger picture for the moment, if you will, school meals programs are really growing the next generation of consumers. Kids who are growing up in Vermont schools with strong farm to school programs, as you heard earlier from Betsy, are showing up at UVM asking for and demanding local food in the cafeterias there. And as schools continue to increase their local purchasing, we'll see the further strengthening of our local supply chain, which will facilitate greater market opportunities for our farmers and producers. The local foods incentive clearly illustrates the power of a state incentive to catalyze these shifts in institutional purchasing practices. So we're all here together, including this committee, working to push back against a system, frankly, that privileges large scale agriculture that far too often depletes soil health, exacerbates the climate crisis and concentrates wealth in the hands of a few landowners. This local foods incentive helps our schools to shift the focus back towards supporting our small and medium sized producers right here in Vermont. This program is a really big step forward toward leveling the playing field in school food purchasing. So to wrap everything up, as I'm your last speaker on the docket for the day, we made it. You've heard from a variety of stakeholders about the myriad positive impacts of the various investments that the legislature has made in farm to school and early childhood programs over the years. The grants program, which we heard about from Gina and Betsy earlier and Ashley through its innovative blend of financial support to schools, expert and focused technical assistance and the support of a coach helps to build strong farm to school programs with real staying power. And as we've been discussing recently, the local foods incentive grant program is already transforming the way that school nutrition programs think about their food purchasing, shifting more dollars towards Vermont farmers and producers. We anticipate the shift will only continue to grow in the coming years. So thank you for the investments you've already made in farm to school and early childhood programs. Thank you also to our colleagues at the Vermont Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets and the Agency of Education for their strong partnership and leadership in ensuring the success of these programs. And as a reminder, we have come here together today to ask for your support for the farm to school and early childhood grants program with a level funded base appropriation of $500,000 for fiscal year 2024 and to support the local purchasing incentive program at $500,000 in base funding. So in case you haven't heard that floating around fun to make sure. Thank you very much. $500,000, $500,000, $500,000, and Kayla reminded me to pitch the lunch menu today. So we've been working with our friends at the Abbey Group up in the cafeteria and they are featuring a local lunch option. It's a recipe that comes from our New School Cuisine Cookbook, which is a cookbook that was written by and for Vermont school nutrition professionals that features local products. So there is a quinoa, black bean, roasted butternut squash, and local chicken option on the menu at lunch today. So how do you recommend you check that out? That sounds great. I'll be up there. I might need this. Thank you. That's wonderful. Yeah. So how do you take any questions? Yeah. Thank you, Helen. Are there questions? Thank you, Mr. Bear. You mentioned dairy I don't tend to think of. Yeah. A lot of local dairy in school cafeterias or institutions. Yeah. Is local milk actually getting at what we ordered and then she's getting in sufficiently? So fantastic, fantastic question. And there's a couple of layers to the response. There are a lot of local dairy products in schools, in particular yogurt and cheese, are very, very prevalent. Tom spoke earlier about establishing a relationship with Cabot. A lot of schools are buying a lot of Cabot products as they count towards the local foods incentive. And some of the other dairy producers as well, Green Mountain Creamery done in Browleboro sells a lot of yogurt to schools. We even have schools buying butterworks yogurt, which is always exciting to see. So yes, I'd say yogurt and cheese are getting into schools. As you know, fluid milk is one of five meal components that is offered at every lunch. And one of three components is offered at every breakfast. So there is a lot of milk. And the vast majority of not all of the milk that schools are purchasing comes from food because they're pretty much the only game in town in terms of who is offering that eight ounce cartons. And food, while it does source from a regional supply chain from dairy producers all around the Northeast, there's no way for us to know how much of their product is originating from Vermont. And their processing for those eight ounce cartons happens in their facility in Agrawam, Massachusetts. So for those two, with those two factors in mind, that product doesn't meet the Vermont local definition. And so one thing I do want to note is that this is a question we get often, that milk is fluid milk only, not dairy products broadly, just fluid milk is currently excluded from the local foods incentive because effectively have a lack of a viable local option. And we didn't want it to count against a school's ability to hit that 15% threshold. So what they do is they add up the amount of money that they spend on milk. And they just take that out of their total or their denominator. And we calculate the local foods percentage without food milk in the consideration at all. Yeah, some sometime we've got to figure out how much milk does our Vermont schools acquire. And try to get somebody like Monument Farms or y'all a smaller local producer or processor to help them put in a processing and packaging system. It's crazy to, y'all, and the farmers pay to get their milk trucked to Boston. Well, then hood paste to truck it. They've got to be paying, hopefully, to truck it back up here for us to drink. Exactly. And it doesn't make any sense. And I would assume that, y'all, if we had a packaging processor here in Vermont between you folks in Brattleboro and ones in Hardwick and, you know, Rotland, we could figure out a way to distribute that. Plus, they have trucks out. Monument Farms has trucks out delivering, you know, to their local stores. So, no, we've got to get on to that. Absolutely. It doesn't make any sense. Couldn't agree more. You know, and I wonder if it makes sense to partner with our career technical schools with some of this, you know, could a processor, would it make any sense for there being a processor at a career technical program? You mean like Randolph? Oh, yeah, Randolph, or even one of the, you know, local high schools for them to learn how or nearby, at least in some ways, to partner with. Yeah. So, no. So, I'm no different processing engineer. Yeah, you're normal, literally, because I brought that. I'm crazy. But my understanding is that there are a number of, you know, smaller, medium-sized farmers that are looking to add on-farm processing. And again, there's a lot of barriers. And I don't think we have time to get into a lot of the details, but I could take just one. You've got to go upstairs. I've got to go upstairs, but I'll just close with you. Thanks, John. Thanks, Becca. If you don't mind, I'll maybe put my NOVA hat on for a moment here. And this is a question that we're really digging into as it relates to, you know, the institutional market for dairy products exists, and it's a stable market. And could there be a solution to support the crisis that we're seeing in the organic dairies? And so we're actually currently doing an institutional market demand study that's funded through the Dairy Business Innovation Center to really try to understand, well, could institutions, could schools and hospitals and healthcare and pirate campuses play a role in supporting these farmers and onboarding more organic dairy products? We also will need to figure out that processing. That's definitely something that we're lacking here in Vermont. Again, I'm no expert on that, but I know there are greater minds than mine out there that are working on this issue and looking into it. And I think if we can figure out a viable processing option for Vermont dairies, and if we could figure out how to package either in bulk packaging or even in those 8-ounce cartons, even though they create a lot of waste, could we then open up a brand new market for our producers? Require that 8-ounce or could it be 10 or 12? That would be a question I might refer to the Agency of Education to clarify, but my understanding is that it's an 8-ounce serving, but what I don't know is if kids would be allowed to go back and get another milk if they wanted more than that. That's a question for them. Well, if they got instead of calling water a real milk. Unfortunately, they got an issue that we is out of our hands here at the state level. That is a mandate coming from USDA. Even they just recently, last week, announced some proposed updates to the nutrition guidelines, but it had nothing to do with... Well, they lowered the sugar content in your colon chocolate. Yes, but it's still required to be 1% or non-fat milk. So that's an issue that's going to be with us for a long time at a different level. Well, we're working with the Props and the House Committee has felt a tentative help for the organic dairy guys, and we're trying to work out a solution for that over the year of some kind. Yeah, we've got to help them make it through this year so that they can be around to hopefully supply our schools in future. It's like the Roonies at Monument Farms, they're a good, strong, Vermont-based company that if we could get some development money for them to put in a small packaging processing point or loan, I bet they would be glad to do the work. But that's another one. That's another, not to crack another day, but I very much appreciate your time. Thank you. Thanks very much. Yeah, I hope to see you at lunch. Oh, these extras. Yeah, I wonder how they look back. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it's amazing. We took about two hours. I was excited to just zoom through it.