by Rebecca Vaught, 2023 No Kid Hungry Summer Youth Ambassador

As July begins, Frankfort Independent Schools Food Service and the Farm To School program prepares for our 4th week of summer meals. This summer, 22,438 meals have been handed out (In just three weeks!)! Nearly 800 kids are registered to pick up seven days worth of breakfasts and lunches each week this summer. It has been an incredible summer so far, and we are not even halfway through yet!  

We have had the opportunity to feature local food in our meals and plan to continue doing so. In the last three weeks, meals have contained cucumbers and zucchini from Happy Jacks and salad mix, zucchini, and cucumbers from Salad Days. 

None of these meals could have happened without a tremendous effort from the nutrition staff at Frankfort Independent Schools.  Frankfort High School Food Service Manager Daniel Rogers, adds, “Our staff works tremendously hard throughout the week so that when our families show up they are given nutritious and easy-to-prepare meals. Throughout the week, in conjunction with the Franklin County Farmers Market, the staff prepares fresh vegetables, many locally grown, to give out to our students. Farmers Market staff also help facilitate the preparation of these local vegetables. FIS and the Farmers working together have formed a great partnership that is reaching our community in a great way.”

Elsewhere in our farm-to-school program, we’ve been working hard on preparing our school gardens for the 23-24 school year. Here’s an update from Josh Scott, our Garden Manager:

If you've been by Second Street School recently, you may have noticed that our two new structures have lots of things growing on them! The first one, named "The Gourd House," has several different kinds of pumpkins, butternut and yellow squash, dancing gourds, loofah, zinnias, and passionfruit, all growing up to reach the arbor. The second one, "The Bean House," has several varieties of yard-long beans, as well as a few Gerkin, loofah, cherry tomatoes, Malabar spinach, and a cushaw for good measure. Our goal for these structures was to mimic shade trees since the shade is sparse. Hopefully, we will have plenty of leaf coverage by the time school starts back, and different fruits beginning to hang down! 

The Second Street playground garden also includes a row of cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, and potatoes (soon to be harvested-- come out and help on one of our family garden days!). We've also replanted cucumbers where the sugar snap peas just finished. As you can tell, most of the plants within reach of little fingers grow plenty of small, pickable, snacks. We want kids to be able to walk by, grab a tomato or a cucumber, and have a shady spot to sit while they munch.    

The Pumpkin Patch, located just off Taylor Avenue beside Second Street, is also growing well. There, we have Kentucky Rainbow corn growing, along with varieties of butternut squash, sweet potatoes, dry beans, and, of course, lots and lots of pumpkins. Everything on this plot was directly sown by students, much of it during the after-school garden club. We also have two sunflower huts and seven Pawpaw seedlings growing--if we can keep the deer from eating them!

The Frankfort High raised bed garden and food forest look especially happy right now, with plenty of blooms from our perennials! Oregano, chives, lemon balm, cilantro, rosemary, mint, and several varieties of basil in the herb garden are all well-established and ready to be clipped. We also have cherry tomatoes almost ready to ripen, and the archway is filling up with yard-long beans and loofah.

If you're interested in any of the gardens we've talked about, come and help out during one of our Family Garden days! We meet Tuesday mornings from 9-10:30 at Frankfort High School, Tuesday evenings from 5-7 at the Dolly Graham Community Garden, and Thursday evenings from 5-7 at the Second Street Playground.

The entire Farm to School team is extremely excited for the rest of this summer and for the upcoming school year! We hope to see you at one of our family garden days or during meal pickups. As always, reach out to our Farm-to-School coordinator, Connie Lemley (connie.lemley@frankfort.kyschools.us) with any questions!

By: Rebecca Vaught