‘It’s a triple win’

Southern Iowa Resource Conservation and Development (RCD) is working with Union County Food Coalition and Iowa State University to provide Farm to Early Care and Education (F2ECE) boxes to area preschools. The goal is to provide fresh, healthy and local foods to children starting at a young age.

Southern Iowa RCD will be offering teacher boxes to 10 preschool classrooms in southern Iowa for the upcoming school year

Participating preschool and early childhood centers are in Union, Taylor, Adams and Union counties.

According to ISU’s website, these food kits will be delivered once a month and will include “a bag of supplies for a local food lesson and taste-test will be delivered to preschool classrooms. The lessons include information about the food, a physical activity, an easy recipe to make in the classroom and other ideas for taste-tests.”

Teresa Wiemerslage of ISU Extension and Outreach’s Farm, Food and Enterprise helped found this program.

“We’ve been doing this for several years,” Wimerslage said. “We were hearing from preschools teachers specifically that they loved to do farm to school activities but they were having trouble finding food to serve for taste tests, so we created the teacher box program as a way to deliver locally grown products to them so they can teach they lesson in their classroom.”

Co-founder of the Union County Food Coalition and Executive Director of Southern Iowa RCD Michelle Wilson explained local involvement in the program.

“Southern Iowa RC&D has been involved in the local foods movement in the area for a number of years,” Wilson said. “We’re excited to be bringing this program to the area. With the food coalition, we’re focused a lot on food insecurity, which is very important work. And, adding in the local food and nutritious food element to our food projects is a next-level endeavor.”

The type of food in each kit depends on the time of year. For example, September might be about different types of apples, while January or February might focus more on animal products. Example lesson plans can be found on the ISU website.

“It’s a triple win,” Wiemerslage said regarding how the program helps the community.

Wilson further explained this idea.

“Young tastebuds are introduced to healthy foods, setting them up for a lifetime of healthy eating, while also learning about local agriculture,” Wilson said. “Producers are able to sell their products locally at a fair price, and the communities benefit by having the next generation understand where their food comes from.”

Wiemerslage explained that it’s because of people like Wilson that this program continues.

“The key piece to this program is being able to have a local partner that is willing to do the leg work for it, willing to help find the classrooms and get those products to the teachers so they can do their lessons,” Wiemerslage said. “The local partners are really important. Thanks to her, we’re able to offer this.”