Woonsocket School serves an average of 200 students a day for lunch. As the newly hired Food Service Director, Jessica Anderson is looking to feed those students developing a connection between the school and local farmers through the South Dakota Farm to School program. The program creates an avenue for schools and local farmers to build a partnership that benefits the farmers, the school and the community.

One of the elements of the Farm to School program is local food procurement. Anderson estimates that the school will use an average of 80 pounds of beef per week during the 2023-2024 school year. She is hoping to get a commitment of four to five cattle for the year. Anderson says, “People can donate cattle, cash towards processing, or help with transportation of cattle and product.” 

She added that the school only uses ground beef and patties from the processed cattle. According to the recently formed Woonsocket Lakefront Cafeteria Facebook page, one of those local partnerships has been made with Scott and Crystal Lammey donating a steer to the Woonsocket School food program in support of Farm to School.

…Read more in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!

The end of the school year brings some free time for the kids to start to transition from the day-to-day school grind to the more flexible summer schedule that most of them will enjoy. Since there isn’t time to start new lessons with just a few days of the school year left, some “winddown” time is always available for teachers to make sure their students have all their work turned in and all their tests taken so final grades can be done promptly and the summer can start for everyone at the same time. With that free time, the school staff does a great job to organize activities for the kids to get outdoors, burn off energy and work on some team-building skills. In Woonsocket this year, the PreK through sixth graders enjoyed a track and field day, a field day of activities at the ball field and some extra activities outside that they can do all summer long. 

…See pictures in this week’s issue of the Sanborn Weekly Journal!