Cambridge-Narrows Community School (C-NCS)
Cambridge-Narrows, NB
2018-2019 (Grant Year 1)
The small Village of Cambridge-Narrows is located in South-Central New Brunswick and their community school is home to a thriving Farm to School initiative which benefits students from kindergarten to grade 12. Originally part of F2CC’s Nourishing School Communities initiative, this school is still going strong, now as one of our 91 schools participating in Farm to School: Canada Digs In! Below is a look-back on their 2018/19 school year shared by Marcy Malloy, the Community School Coordinator and Farm to School champion.
It has been another successful year with our Farm to School program here at C-NCS!
This past school year, for the first time in many years, there was a Culinary Tech class offered through our high school program. This class turned out to be instrumental in making our Farm to School program happen this year. Every Monday, during the third period, the class would come in and do all the prep for the school lunch, including our salad bar, main course and a healthy dessert. This meal was available for sale to all of our students and staff during the lunch hour on Mondays. Our meal consisted of something different every week, ranging from veggie pizza, flatbread, subs, pasta, among many other dishes. And, of course, the salad bar! The healthy dessert was usually a muffin or cookie of some sort, such as pumpkin cookies, applesauce muffins, or similar.
As always, there remain challenges with procurement of local supplies, especially in the off-season. Until November we are able to buy our greens locally. And as a bonus, this past year we were able to find a local farmer producing cucumbers and tomatoes during the winter months!
The greatest part of the program is not only seeing the younger students come through the salad bar and trying different things they normally wouldn’t have, but seeing the Culinary students learn, and progress their cooking skills – and their appreciation of healthy foods – throughout the year.
In the spring we had our Outdoor Pursuits class work in the garden boxes we have here at the school and have planted several with potatoes, onions, carrots and other fall harvesting veggies. We are looking forward to harvesting these items in the fall and using them in our lunch program in September.
