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Alaska Farm To School Announcements, resources, NEA foundation grant

Farm to School Month is only 10 days away!

Don’t forget about the 2^nd annual AK Farm to School Challenge: http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/ag_challengeFTS.htm, you can start submitting projects on Oct.1 and you get bonus points for any of the following (5 points each for a possible 15 bonus points)

1.       Your project, or some part of it, taking place in October

2.       Putting your project on the NFSN event map: www.farmtoschoolmonth.org/map-of-events/ (it only takes a minute) or

3.       Taking the NFSN Farm-to-School Counts Pledge and be entered into NFSN’s drawing for $500 (three chances to win).

Announcements

·         We have finished presenting the webinars for the ‘Nutritional Alaskan Food for Schools’ (NAFS) grant.  The presentation has been archived for viewing at both the NAFS main grant page: http://commerce.alaska.gov/dca/grt/NAFS.htm and the FTS page: http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/ag_FTS.htm  If there is interest in us hosting another webinar about the NAFS grant please email Debi Kruse or Johanna Herron and let us know if you prefer mornings or afternoons: Debi.kruse@alaska.gov, Johanna.herron@alaska.gov.   If we get enough requests we will host more webinars as needed.

·         A huge congratulations go out to Petersburg and Kenai School Districts for meeting Healthier US School Challenge (HUSSC) criteria!  Listen to the story here: http://www.kfsk.org/2012/09/13/petersburg-and-kenai-schools-first-in-ak-to-meet-healthierus-criteria/

·         Another big congratulations to Child Nutrition Programs for their Team Nutrition grant award!  Read the project summary here

Resources

·         Equipment recommendations- As school food service starts handling more local product that requires on-site processing, we wanted to provide some tools for finding useful equipment to help with that.  These lists are not exhaustive but may give you some useful ideas.  National Food Service Management Institute, on equipment for school food, has a great chart on page A16 that has recommendations for schools serving different numbers of meals: http://teamnutrition.usda.gov/Resources/equip12.pdf  Two great recommendation sheets for equipment like salad spinners and wedge makers can be found here and here

Grant

·         NEA Foundation-Nickelodeon Big Help Grants Available to K-8 Public School Educators

Grants of up to $5,000 are available to educators at K-8 public schools for the development and implementation of approaches to four key concerns — environmentalism, health and wellness, students' rights to a quality education, and community involvement.  Deadline: October 15, 2012  For more information go to:

www.neafoundation.org/pages/educators/grant-programs/nea-foundation-green-grants/