Woonsocket school was one of two South Dakota school districts to receive a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service to purchase equipment for their food service programs.

Woonsocket School received $25,000, which will be used toward purchasing a new oven for the kitchen. The new oven will be bigger, with an ability to simultaneously cook different foods at different temperatures. The school’s food service director, Jessica Anderson, stated in their grant application, “Our student enrollment has continued to increase … With this increase, we will need to increase the amount of food we are preparing, and our current equipment is not able to hold the amount, [and] when you do fill the oven, it [does] not cook the food evenly, which is decreasing the quality and safety of the food we are serving.” She also stated that the additional cooking settings that the oven offers would also allow them to try new recipes for the students to enjoy.