 Hello, Sheboygan. My name is Heather Cleveland, and I'm the moderator for this program today. This is the Sustainable Sheboygan Spotlight. And this came out of the Outreach, the Education Outreach Committee, which is part of the Sustainable Sheboygan Task Force. The Sustainable, actually the City of Sheboygan recently created a sustainability plan that includes multiple topics. We covered recycling in our last program, and this is our second episode, and we'll be covering local food, another topic in the sustainability plan. My guest for today to talk about local food is Jenny, one of my guests is Jenny Conradie. She's the co-founder and a board member of our local food co-op, Good Side Grocery. My second interview will be with Judy Smith. She's the School Nutrition Coordinator for Sheboygan Area School District. Both of these women have been making great progress for the City of Sheboygan with respect to nutrition and local food. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Jenny Conradie. So my first question for you, Jenny, I guess tell us a little bit about yourself, and then we'll go into the interview with the first question being when did Good Side Grocery open? But if you could just start by introducing yourself. Sure, my name is Jenny Conradie, like Heather said, and I am a Sheboygan native. And I have been involved with local food in a number of different facets for the last 15 years. So I started my venture with local food at a CSA farm in this area, Springdale Farm in Plymouth. And shortly after I started working there, I went to Madison for college. Madison is really steeped in local food and the local food movement. So I was able to be a part of a pretty expansive community for local food there. After graduating college, I came back here to Sheboygan and saw a need for something that's very common in Madison, which is a food co-op. So I think about a year or two after arriving back here, we started making plans for a food co-op. It was myself and a group of other people. So the food co-op, we started planning in 2009 and we opened in May 2011. So we are at about three and a half years of business now approaching year four in May. Okay, very cool. And what is a cooperative? Some people may not know what a cooperative is. I know that, and you can confirm this, that you're the only food co-op in Sheboygan County. So what does it mean to be a cooperative? A cooperative is just like any other business on its face for the most part. For instance, being a food cooperative at our heart we're a grocery store. But the biggest difference is in our business structure. Usually businesses are owned by a single person or by a corporate entity. And the difference for us is that we are owned by community members. This is really important because it's really a great chance to put the power back in the hands of the people. So instead of being governed by people or institutions that are far away from you, that you have very little influence over, you become the power for change and for good in the community. So the way that we do that is we sell shares in our company for $35 a year and that gives people voting rights in our institution. So the members are able to come to member meetings and vote on different topics and that helps them retain control over how their community is shaped and run. Very good. And then I guess this is a fewfold question so people can kind of imagine if they've never been to Goodside Grocery but it's like what products do you sell there and then when are you open, where are you located and if you could also emphasize the local aspect of the food co-op. Sure. We are a small but full service grocery store. So we have a full line of meat, dairy, produce, bulk grains, dry and canned goods, frozen items. So we carry a little bit of everything and we focus on local and sustainable items. Our meat, our produce, our dairy are completely local all year round, which is really excellent. It's sort of a revolutionary way to think about grocery shopping. So we get all of our produce and meat from within Cheboygan County and that's really, really exciting. And... Where are you located and when are you open? We are located at 816 St. Clair Avenue in downtown Cheboygan. So we are right off of 8th Street. We're tucked sort of in the same building as Paradigm Coffee and Music and we are open 10 a.m. until 7 p.m., seven days a week. So it's really exciting that you can get fresh local goods every day of the week. And then who can shop there? I guess so you become a member. Can anybody shop there? If you could tell us a little bit about that and then also is it affordable? Sure. Yeah, anyone can shop there. It's open to the public. You need not be a member in order to shop at the co-op. Membership just affords you benefits. So the first benefit as we mentioned was being able to hold a vote on how things are run in the store within our democratic structure. And the second privilege is that you receive a discount on your grocery purchases every time. So when you invest that $35 into your voting right, you also receive a 10% discount on all your grocery purchases every time. As far as being affordable, I think we make every effort to be affordable and offer some of the most affordable groceries in the county. We have organic, sustainably grown, great produce at some of the lowest prices in town. We have really competitive dairy prices, meat prices for grass-fed, pasture-raised local meat is very competitive. And a great way to be able to get extra great deals is to become even more involved in the co-op. We offer volunteer shifts at our co-op. We are 100% volunteer run and our volunteers work three-hour shifts in the store per week. And for working that three-hour shift, they receive a 20% discount on their groceries every time. So that's a really steep discount. It's a really great perk and it's a symbiotic relationship. It helps the co-op stay open and run since we are run solely on the good of the community on volunteer power. We also offer options for people to work hours as volunteers in exchange for their membership benefit. So if someone's struggling, they want to be a member, but they're struggling to come up with the $35 a year, they can do volunteer hours in exchange for it instead. So that's also really a great way to try to integrate more people in the community into our local food network. We also accept EBT cards at the co-op, which I think is a really great way to try to help people, more a wider section of people in the community be able to afford our groceries. And I just want to comment on that, that your location is centrally located. You're one of the few grocery stores that it's located and especially with that quality in the area. So that's great. And what inspired you to create Good Side Grocery? I know you talked about your background in Madison a little bit, but what inspired you and the group to kind of come together and actually do it? Well, I think we all just feel very strongly that having access to good quality, nutritious food is really important to the well-being of individuals and the community. And I think it increases the quality of life for community members and for individuals. And it's just important for me to see Sheboygan be able to elevate itself. For me, it really started as this sort of philosophical notion that I wanted to give something back to the community that raised me. I'm from Sheboygan, Sheboygan native. And it felt really important to me that I can make a difference for a place that made a difference for me. And that seemed like a natural way for me to do it. It's in line with my interests. There was a need. And it just felt right. And I think that the group of people that we started with all had similar attitudes. They felt very strongly that good quality, nutritious food just creates a better standard for quality of life. And that's important. And then I guess this is more of a broad question, but why is local food important? Some people may not, they shop wherever they shop, may not know why it would be important to buy local food. Yeah. It's important on a few different tiers. It's important because it offers the highest level of nutrition for food. When food comes from local sources, it takes a lot less time for it to get from the field to your plate, which means that farmers are able to pick their goods or harvest their goods at their peak level of ripeness. And when they're picked at the peak level of ripeness as opposed to before that time, it offers the most nutrition that you can glean from those veggies. So that's really important. With our shipping standards, our global shipping standards that we have now, oftentimes fruits and vegetables are picked far before their ripeness and then are sprayed with gases or left to sit to ripen on their own and they don't really reach that peak nutrition and flavor. So this offers a really great opportunity for people to really get the best bang for their buck, so to say, in terms of nutrition and flavor. It's also important because it really reduces the amount of transportation needed for food to get to people's plates. Instead of shipping across the country, across the world, you're shipping within the county. This can greatly reduce the use of fossil fuels, the labor involved and the time that takes to get the food to your plate. The last reason that it's important is that it keeps money within your local economy instead of flexing money to corporate entities that don't really have a location per se. They don't really have a community that they're attached to. It keeps the dollars within the community that people are in. And that helps increase not only your own quality of life because having more money within your community means that there are more opportunities to rise for yourself. But it also creates great diversity and interest by providing farmers and small business owners with the funds to continue their livelihood. And just quickly summarize that really well. What's the vision for Good Side Grocery and just maybe a sentence and then how can people find more information? Sure, the vision for Good Side Grocery is to be able to reach the most people in the community with the best quality food in order to help them to lead well-balanced, healthy lives. And they can find more information at www.GoodSideGrocery.com. You can like us on Facebook, at our Facebook page, or feel free to stop in our store at 816 St. Clair Avenue, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. or open seven days a week. Thank you so much. Yeah, thank you. Welcome back, everybody. I'll now conduct an interview with Judy Smith. As I mentioned earlier, she's the school nutrition coordinator for Shabuikin Air School District. Thank you so much for coming, Judy. When did you start with the Shabuikin Air School District? I just started with the district last year. So we've had one fun packed full year of change, I would say. Okay, great. And then I thought this question would help you introduce yourself and then not only tell us about your experience in the past, but what your role is with the Shabuikin Air School District. So what is your experience and what is your current role with the Shabuikin Air School District? I love change and I love to rebuild or enhance programs. So I started my career, I hate to say this because it's dating myself, but 26 years ago. And basically what I've done is gone into districts that need help or need enhancements and looked at changing programming to positively impact our youth. This is my biggest challenge. This is the largest district. We have about 10,000 students that we can positively impact. Our goal is to provide them the nourishment they need for academic achievement. Excellent. So tell me about the Shabuikin Air School District nutrition program historically and today. The program used to be a tray pack system and we have some interesting historical photos of the system that they used to use. So each student would receive a cold pack with all of their fruits and their salads in it and they would receive a hot pack. And the hot pack, if it had peas and let's say lasagna had to be heated to a certain temperature all together and the students then were handed both of these containers as they went through the service line. This last year we were able to implement a new system where students actually have salad bars and by having salad bars studies have shown that when students serve themselves they will consume 75% more of what they actually take themselves. So we piloted that program and we were able to receive some grants for funding from United Fresh and the students really took to being able to self-serve. The other thing that was interesting this last year is once we started that we thought why not try heating the foods separately and not having the tray pack and that gets the smells into the school and your vegetables don't need to be heated as long. So the new look of Shabuikin Air School District food service as we used to call it is now Shabuikin Air School nutrition is students have more nutritious foods that are cooked to the quality that they should be for them to enjoy and consume. Excellent. What have you accomplished over the past year? One of the biggest accomplishments was getting out to all 27 locations with being a large district it takes a lot of time to get out and meet with the staff and actually meet with administration. We actually had to work on equipment improvements whether it be putting sinks in, refrigeration, ovens different things that needed to be updated and talking to the students and the staff and saying what would you like changed? The idea of cooking onsite is something that I've used in other operations and I knew with the quality of staff we had here there was no reason why and the staff were so willing to actually do what would help the kids receive better quality food so that the kids actually consume the food. So some of our young adults and our real little kids even can serve themselves the salad bar obviously but when they see the food actually prepared in the kitchen and they smell the food it actually really has positively impacted their day so to say in their nourishment. So I think the biggest accomplishment is getting the kitchens enhanced and then getting the menus changed for the students. Okay, great. What is new and what do you hope to accomplish in the future? We have so many new things having the team that I have here on the nutrition program and even our administration without great administration it's really hard to make change but one of the things that I really am happy we implemented was the harvest of the month and we're trying to use local foods and we have a group nourish which you're also part of that actually helps us in after school programming reinforce the idea of what is the harvest of the month and the goal is we're gonna try to even bring in more locally grown products to actually have the students try. Getting students to eat more fruits and vegetables is so important so we have the fruit and vegetable program also at two sites when I started and now we have it at four sites so four schools have that program where students three days a week are getting a different fruit and vegetable to try and it takes over eight times for students to try things to know whether or not they like them so we just need to keep introducing fruits and vegetables to get the consumption up on those items. Excellent. And what do you hope to accomplish in the future? I know that's a giant question we only have so much time. There's just so many things that are exciting I think training the staff and giving them more opportunities for growth and which will better the program is even more for the students I really look forward to working more with the students we're looking at nutrition outreach and having more student driven menus. This last year we were able to actually have students taste test the food and they actually selected and taste tested the entrees that we would use from our commodity dollars which is commodity foods. With diverting foods there's 20 different chicken products for example and our students actually voted. We wanna do more with the students so it's more of a student driven program so that they have ownership of their program. A lot of marketing and a lot of public relations work we wanna work on this next year as well as continuing to work on improved food quality so that it's heated to the right temperature and the right time and getting the students through the service lines as quickly as possible. And what is your vision for school food programs in the Sheboyganary School District? I think the overall vision is the more students we can get to eat so that they have the nourishment they need to have academic achievement the better off we will be but more important than that is if you serve food that they aren't consuming then they aren't receiving any benefit so I think a balance between nutritionally sound food that's done to the quality that we can have the best quality for the students but that they will consume. So it doesn't do us any good to have a certain whole grain product if they're not gonna eat it so we have to try and taste test and sample and I think that's where it's really important for the student involvement. I want us to be an outstanding student driven program that's financially sound so that we can continue to feed as many students as possible. Excellent and here's a big question but an important one why are school food programs important? I think many people don't understand the history of school nutrition programs they started back in 1946 because we needed to have healthy people to fight in the war. As the programs have evolved they're federally funded programs there's requirements with the programs and the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act came into play and when that came into play it was based on some very, very in depth research that the Institute of Medicine had done and even though your child may be healthy or my child is healthy, one out of three children in the United States are getting diseases that could be preventable if their nutrition or their food intake and their exercise were balanced and if we were doing more for them. So with the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act what happened is they instituted new meal pattern requirements. We need more of an education piece to go along with that but what we're looking at is half the plate that they're eating should be fruits and vegetables. So by incorporating the salad bars and incorporating all of the things we're doing at our school we also wanna be able to get the message out to the parents and help them. Maybe they don't know how easy Hickam is to peel for example or what is seasonal in Wisconsin that they could use. So our goal is going to be getting more involved with the parent teacher organizations, more involved with nourish doing outreach and more involved in getting the message out to students why the Healthy Hunger Free Kids Act in the MyPlate curriculum is so important for students. And I have two questions here cause we have a little bit of time. One change I know that has happened since you started is you took over the summer lunch program. I was wondering if you could touch on that a little bit and then also what school districts do you aspire to? What gives you inspiration? What can be done I guess? I know Boston is one that you've looked at. Could you touch on those two questions a little bit? Sure we might have to have you repeat the second one but to start if you could touch on the summer lunch program. The summer lunch program was run by a group of community people who joined together and they recognized a need to feed youth in the summer. When I started we needed to take this over for the district because it had grown too large for the current organization who had run it for years and they had done a stellar job. Being new wasn't something I wanted to start right away but there was a need. So we took it over and again federal money funds these programs. Summer feeding sounds kind of funny so we call it summer nourishment. The students can come in and receive a free meal. Everyone receives a free meal for breakfast and for lunch at any of our sites and it's typically summer school sites where there's staff because it was easier to choose those sites. So we had it at five elementaries this year. The students were able to eat breakfast which is easy two grain product, whole grains, fruit and a milk and they were able to eat lunch which is a protein, a milk and a fruit and vegetable and they were also able to receive nourishment education on nutrients so to say and where did the food come from? There was a local component that nourish brought in they were using the local farmers to bring in the food. By bringing in the local foods there was an education piece that helps our students learn where does food come from? How do you grow your community? By purchasing local we are positively impacting the economy which is so important. In addition to that we are also looking at for summer nourishment. What would our students do if they weren't in summer school for example? There's a need in our community to give students nourishment year round. So it was a really exciting year to partner with United Way and Boys and Girls Club and with nourish and I hate to forget anyone but it was a big group of people that were able to help us and without the important volunteers we would not have been successful. The volunteers came in and helped us get the children through the line. The little ones that are K through five to get them fed in 20 minutes when you have 200 kids is it's a big accomplishment and without volunteers we would not have been able to do that so we were very successful with summer nourishment providing a need to our students. And we just have a minute left so if you could touch on some programs I guess they're successful ones I know in Wisconsin and then how can people learn more? If you wanna learn anything about our district in particular the website is a phenomenal place to look. We have under school nutrition under Sheboygan area school district a whole section we even talk about how to prepare vegetables, fruits, we have recipes. We have nutritional analysis on our website now this year those are all new things that we did. The harvest of the month, the fresh fruit and vegetable program all of that is incorporated into our website. I am very blessed to be able to have worked with different people over the years that I've been doing this and I have people that have mentored me such as Wes Ben Lindgros is outstanding food service director. We all share and we all communicate and we all bounce ideas back to make the programs the best we can for our students because they need to be nourished in order to be well educated. Excellent, thank you so much Judy. Thank you.