FALL 1999

In this issue • Value-added agriculture builds hope for rural Iowa • Clinton listens to producer concerns • EFNEP … 30 years of success • Cooperative study offers model - and savings - for Iowa • School food production and service: Half a century of training • Iowa manufacturers take note: Changes at IMTC • Youth catch BOOMERANG! -- Build character and life skills • Give the gift of life -- a carbon monoxide alarm __________ The Extension Connection Fall 1999 homepage

School food production and service: Half a century of training Can't quite remember the face of your third-grade teacher? Try the face that went with the gloved hands that set that hamette-on-bun on your tray. Iowa State University Extension's Extended and Continuing Education (ECE) program and the Iowa Department of Education have spent the last 50 years training those who prepare and serve lunches for school children. "ISU has one of the longest running school foods short courses in the country," said Ann DeGroat, regional director of the Special Nutrition Program, USDA. In that time, many things have changed about school lunches and the type of training lunch personnel need. Participants in ECE's food service school series use computers to analyze menus. Rose McGill, food service manager from North Scott Community School, has been involved in food service for 23 years and has attended the workshops, a cooperative effort of the Iowa Bureau of Food and Nutrition, ISU Extension, ISU Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institution Management, and the USDA, for many of those years. She has seen school lunches change with the addition of a salad bar, a la carte items and breakfast. In addition, DeGroat said, schools are seeing more vegetarian students, offering more choices even at the elementary level and marketing school lunches to compete with nearby fast food restaurants. Participants in ECE's food service school series study safety and sanitation in an ICN session. ECE's training continues to keep up with the changes by having consultants visit schools, seeking food personnel's input into training topics. "We are constantly looking at issues that concern school food service professionals and then trying to address those concerns through education," said Christine Anders at the Iowa Bureau of Food and Nutrition, who coordinates the program with ISU Associate Professor Jim Huss. "We have just begun to use the ICN for some of our training and are looking for additional ways to make training opportunities available to our constituents." Meeting the training needs has changed but all agree that a few things haven't -- preparing nutritious foods that kids will like and eat, and safeguarding children's health and well-being. According to DeGroat, "Even 40 years later, kids remember the ladies in the lunchroom because they are caring people. They do more than pass out food."