The WRVSU Child Nutrition Program is a model program that emphasizes scratch cooking, local food purchasing, and food security. The program provides nutritious meals year-round through breakfast and lunch during the school year, as well as summer meals and an afterschool supper program, ensuring students and families have access to healthy food throughout the year.
Scope and purpose
WRVSU Child Nutrition Program serves all eight schools within WRVSU's six districts, reaching close to 1,300 students and serving an average of approximately 1,175 school meals each day. The overall goal goes beyond simply providing meals: the program seeks to make healthy, high-quality food accessible to children while supporting their educational experience and reducing food insecurity.
Farm-to-school and local foods
A particularly notable part of WRVSU's model is its commitment to farm-to-school purchasing. State data for the 2023–24 school year reported that WRVSU served 117,441 lunches and budgeted approximately $28,944 for locally produced foods, representing about 8% local purchasing at that time.
The program has continued expanding local purchasing. WRVSU began purchasing local beef at the start of the 2025 school year, adding it to other locally sourced foods. Johnson has described local purchasing as a way both to support area farms and to help students understand where their food comes from. According to the Vermont Farm to School & Early Childhood Network, WRVSU reported that its increased focus on local foods since 2023 coincided with an almost 20% increase in lunch participation—roughly 120 additional students eating school lunch each day.
Year-round food access
WRVSU also addresses food access when school is not in regular session.. In the first week of summer 2025, WRVSU distributed more than 1,000 free meals at Bethel Elementary School alone. Its USDA-affiliated summer program offered free breakfast and lunch to children 18 and younger without requiring income information or advance enrollment.
Overall, WRVSU's Child Nutrition Program can be characterized as a district-wide, year-round nutrition and food-security program with a strong scratch-cooking and farm-to-school focus. It combines federal and state child-nutrition programs with local purchasing and community partnerships to increase students' access to nutritious meals while directing some school-food spending toward Vermont agriculture.
FOOD SERVICE CONTACTS
Mischa Johnson, WRVSU Child Nutrition Director: mjohnson@wrvsu.org
Bethel: Alyssa Jarvis ajarvis@wrvsu.org, Laina Robinson lrobinson@wrvsu.org and Susan Henderson shenderson@wrvsu.org
Chelsea: Casey Knudson cknudson@wrvsu.org
Newton: Gretchen Hewes ghewes@wrvsu.org
Rochester: Doug Kennedy dkennedy@wrvsu.org
Royalton: Cathy Sample csample@wrvsu.org, Amanda Cross across@wrvsu.org, Linann Perry lperry@wrvsu.org and, Chuck Howe chowe@wrvsu.org
Sharon: Jill Dorman jdorman@wrvsu.org and Kelley Flood-Hammond kflood-hammond@wrvsu.org
Stockbridge: Natasha Springer nspringer@wrvsu.org
Tunbridge: Pam Zug pzug@wrvsu.org, Virginia Fifield vfifield@wrvsu.org
USDA Civil Rights Non-discrimination Statement
https://education.vermont.gov/nondiscrimination-policies#usda-english