The Farmers’ Market, created by Imagine Forestville, runs every Thursday and features local vendors selling their farm fresh produce. There is also a booth set up and operated by the Forestville Central School cafeteria staff, who are giving out lunches for anyone to age 18, while also helping support the local farms and community.

“The big initiative at Forestville has been Farm to School,” said Nick Weith, Forestville’s Food Service Director. “One aspect of that is integrating as much locally grown food as we can.”

Forestville had put their summer meal program on hiatus for the last several years but brought it back recently with the direction of Weith and the Farm to School program. The program had been tabled due to lack of turnout. Forestville Superintendent Renee Garrett said that the average turnout was somewhere between 10 and 12 people, but with it now at the Farmers’ Market, that has gone up substantially.

“Sign-ups are up to 155 students a week, picking up seven days’ worth of breakfast and lunch,” Weith said. “They’re also getting access to fresh fruits and veggies. We have a high pickup rate that ranges from 90-95 percent of students coming to pick up their food. It’s incredible.”

Forestville cafeteria staff members Mary Gunther, left, and Sandy Muck, right, hand out meals and supplies as part of Forestville Central School’s Farm to School program at the Forestville Farmers’ Market.

Because of the new location downtown as part of the market, the program has been able to blossom. But it’s boomed for more reasons than just that. They’ve also changed how the meal pickups are taking place and packaged.

Instead of pre-packing sandwiches, fruits, vegetables, and other kinds of food, the partnership with the Farmers’ Market allows for students to directly pick out any vegetables, fruits, or other materials they want to take home with them, fresh. On top of that, the school is also electing to not hand out pre-made sandwiches, and are instead giving out bulk loaves of bread, cheese, and sandwich meats to avoid things going to waste.

“We worked out pricing with local farmers,” Weith said. “Students can get raffle tickets and can exchange those for whatever fresh fruits and veggies they want. Reheated veggies aren’t appetizing so instead of putting in all this effort of preparing meals just for them to throw it away because they don’t want it or like it, they can go get exactly the produce they want to take home. It’s a win-win for the local community, business, students, and us. It’s been an awesome opportunity so far.”

As this program is truly equally beneficial to all parties, this rendition of doing things also benefits the cafeteria staff. The program is no longer a sit-in for the students to come in and eat but is instead operating on the pickups at the market. And because the focus is handing out the product in bulk, the Forestville cafeteria staff can save both time and money allocating those resources to other outlets.

“It helps us huge in the cafeteria, we don’t have to portion out everything or spend a lot of money on the pre-portioned cups and bags,” Weith said. “That makes it easy for us to get that food to students. In turn, because we’re saving money on that end, we can invest more into higher quality ingredients and getting better food for our students. We’re typically spending a few cents per portion on fruits and veggies, but because we’re saving money serving in bulk, we’re allocating that money to give students opportunities from the farmer’s market stands.”

And of course, with the meal pick-up taking place at the market, that also brings kids and parents to the market, which helps out the business of those vendors even further. While several school districts across the United States serve bulk vegetables to their students, Forestville took that idea and ran with it.

“We thought it would allow people to visit the vendors at the market as well” Weith said. “One of the things places did at the beginning of the pandemic was provide bulk veggies. We took that concept and expanded on it. We’re always taking ideas from other places and turning them into our own. No one else across the state is doing this, we’re really laying the groundwork.”

The meal program is open to anyone ages 18, which the school also acknowledges is an opportunity to meet the parents of children to age 3 who are not yet attending school. Expanding on that further, the program is even available outside of the Forestville School District, provided that those students are not acquiring summer meals from any other source. The age cap of 18 is also expanded to age 21 for people with disabilities.

“While we like people to sign up because it allows us to have appropriate numbers of meals, we build in extra,” Weith said. “Anyone 18 and younger can come and get food from the market and partake in this new type of access to fresh fruits and veggies, which is a really great opportunity.”

Even with the high pick-up rate, there is a contingency plan for meals that aren’t picked up: The food is donated to Forestville’s food pantry to disseminate it how they see fit. Additionally, because of the small community that Forestville is, Weith and his other staff, Sandy Much and Mary Gunther, are well recognized in the community, meaning people trust them.

“When families see (Gunther and Muck), they’re happy to see them,” Garrett said. “They’re not just employees, they’re community members too.”

The Forestville Farmers’ Market runs every Thursday, right outside Cave’s Deli. The Market will continue to run through the fall, while the Forestville Food Program will end on Sept. 2.