The fish that didn't get away (it became a taco): Jenn Lovewell's journey from dock to cafeteria

0:00:04 Michelle

Welcome to the Farm to School podcast, where you'll hear stories of how youth thrive and farmers prosper. Did we like that? Was that good? Is that good? Okay, we can keep going then. We were just trying to spice it up for y'all because we always say the same intro every time.

00:00:22 Rick

And that wasn't me. But while there's, yeah, we have a guy in studio that has way better voice than me and I'm jealous.

00:00:32 Michelle

So we are your hosts.

00:00:34 Michelle

I'm Michelle Markesteyn.

00:00:36 Rick

And I'm Rick Sherman still.

00:00:37 Michelle

Still. We discussed this last time. I asked if you're going to change your name. Hey, did you ever have any nicknames? Oh, I think you need one. I mean, the one nickname around here Rick tells us all the time about is that he's a pretty big deal.

00:00:54 Rick

Well, that was Michelle that bestowed that honor on me. That's a long story back to when I was a food service director and I bumped into this local D-Less celebrity. in a plane line that actually told that to as he was trying to pick up a lady. And he said, I'm a pretty big deal. And I thought of, like the Ron Burgundy, it's really embarrassing. I'm a real big deal. And she's like, well, I've never heard of you. It was so, it was like, I don't know.

00:01:20 Michelle

I feel like you're, I feel like you're ignoring my real question here, which is like, yeah, what you got?

00:01:26 Rick

I had some that I probably can't repeat. I was Ricky as a little kid, Ricky, but no, Ricky, Ricky Sherman, and then Richard Sherman, which of course is the football player everyone knows, and so that was a...

00:01:41 Michelle

That's why he was so many Facebook fans, right?

00:01:43 Rick

I did it when he was in Vogue and when he was a Seahawk, which, by the way, go Hawks, they're going to play in the Super Bowl this week.

00:01:51 Michelle

At the time of this recording.

00:01:53 Rick

And you've all known they're Super Bowl champions by now, so that's great.

00:01:56 Michelle

And we're talking the 2026.

00:01:59 Rick

When he was a Seahawk, I got hundreds of Facebook requests and I had to put as a Facebook thing.

00:02:05 Rick

I am not that Richard Sherman. I wish I had his money, but.

00:02:11 Michelle

Or do you? You never know. But anyway, the grass is always greener.

00:02:13 Rick

What, did you have a nickname?

00:02:16 Michelle

Potentially.

00:02:18 Rick

What kind of answer is that? Potentially, that's skirting the question.

00:02:22 Michelle

I'm in the market. I'm in the market for a new one.

00:02:25 Rick

So goofus, how about that?

00:02:27 Michelle

No, that's terrible.

00:02:28 Rick

That is terrible. I'm sorry. I take that back. I call my dog that. I talk to him, Odie is goofus sometimes when he's bad.

00:02:36 Michelle

So you call me that?

00:02:37 Rick

Yeah, it's just a term of endearment. It's okay. It's all right. Lauren's going to ask us to cut that, but you know. It is what it is. So anyway, we did an episode, didn't we?

00:02:49 Michelle

Did do an episode. Christy Sheridan from the Henry Ford and I, one of the many amazing recordings we did when we were in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the 2025 Farm to Cafeteria National Conference. And we are continuing on our theme of seafood in school, boat to school. Just that concept has really been so interesting to me for so many reasons. And seafood is so healthy and yet I feel like it's a bellwether kind of food product because it's one thing to eat a fruit. Kids eat fruit. Vegetables is the next step. Well, seafood is something entirely different.

00:03:30 Rick

And for farm to school, Like I've always said, if you're in a community like Nevada, Eastern Oregon, Eastern Washington, fruits and veggies might not be available. So ranching is farm to school there. And in the coast, boat to school is a big deal. But I remember back 13 years ago when you and I first started. I was just thinking about Emily Richie and Bend School District.

00:03:54 Michelle

Of course I do.

00:03:55 Rick

Emily used to work for Food Corps. She was a Food Corps fellow and she worked for Oregon Department of Ag with Michelle at the time. But she came up with this boat to school thing and we thought, honestly, we thought, oh, people in Bend, Bend, Oregon is central Oregon in the middle of the high desert.

00:04:11 Michelle

It's about 5 hours from the coast.

00:04:14 Rick

Yeah. So it's a way. So we thought these kids are not going to like it, but they trawlers…

00:04:23 Michelle

They towed their boats over the mountains, which literally is a mountain pass, and went to the school district.

00:04:29 Michelle

And those fishing men and women met the school kids and they absolutely loved, I think they did whiting and then, yeah, that little pink shrimp is like the Oregon pink shrimp is like some of the most sustainable fishery in the world, which is incredible because it always came back from the brink of extinction.

00:04:48 Rick

Not prawns.

It's like the little salad shrimp kind of thing. Yeah.

00:04:51 Michelle

You can just…

00:04:52 Rick

Different parts of the country. Shrimp means different, different thing. Oh, that was our office assistant barking. Sorry. But anyway, but like I think if they would just throw it on the menu, the kids wouldn't care. But since the trawlers came over and they did the whole education thing, it's like we say, teach kids about where their food comes and they love this stuff. And they did.

00:05:12 Michelle

Truth.

00:05:13 Rick

Yeah. So that was this story.

00:05:15 Michelle

Enjoy all.

00:05:16 Christy Sherding

This is Farm to School Network, farm to cafeteria, 2025 magic happening. We are just sitting here chatting with Jen and then Miguel pops by. And so we are doing a two for right now interview.

00:05:31 Michelle

Because of course they know each other. And so here we want to know what you're working on. How did you meet each other? And then let's talk about how amazing this conference is. Why don't you introduce yourself and tell us where you're coming from?

00:05:42 Jenn Lovewell

Sure. I'm Jenn Lovewell, and I'm a former food service director in California. Now I'm running Real Good Fish. We're a national seafood company. Really, our priority is seafood to institutions, so colleges, universities, and hospitals, because seafood is, aside from plants, one of the healthiest things we should all be eating. It's great for kids. It's great for our brains. It's great for everybody. And no one's, especially in schools, they're not eating enough of it.

00:06:07 Michelle

And Miguel, you almost need no introduction except we're on a podcast and they can't see you sitting here. So could you please also introduce yourself?

00:06:13 Miguel Villareal

Yes, Miguel Villarreal. I'm currently the interim co-executive director for the National Farm to School Network where I've spent the last three years. And so prior to that, as Jen's saying, I was a former school food service director in California for about 20 years. And then prior to that, I was a school food service director in Texas for 20 years.

00:06:36 Michelle

We love Texas.

00:06:37 Christy Sherding

We love Texas. A lot of Texas shout outs today.

00:06:41 Miguel Villareal

To all the Texas shout outs.

00:06:42 Michelle

All right, so how did you two, I mean, yeah.

00:06:44 Miguel Villareal

So we were both, Jen was doing some extremely creative work in her school district in terms of local foods and education and advocacy, I imagine, as well. And as we were in our school district, And so we both were singled out, if you will, by California Department of Education in terms, they were running what Jen called an ambassador program. So they were taking people like Jen and myself and going around the state to have us provide training and education and motivation, if you will, to other school districts to demonstrate how we improved our programs within our communities. So that, Jen, how long did that go?

00:07:37 Jenn Lovewell

It was at least three years.

00:07:39 Miguel Villareal

Something like that. Yeah. And we traveled all around the state.

00:07:42 Jenn Lovewell

All around. It was so fun. It was so fun.

00:07:45 Miguel Villareal

It was.

00:07:46 Michelle

Sounds like a field trip, an adult field trip.

00:07:48 Miguel Villareal

Yes, we got to visit lots of different school districts and then, you know, give our presentations. And again, try to motivate others and provide resources as well. So it was a fun time for sure.

00:08:03 Jenn Lovewell

And it was these people like Miguel and Rodney who you just always... You were freaking go Rodney Taylor? Yes, Rodney Taylor. These were your inspirations and then you were getting to, you know, teach them stuff and they were like, oh, that's such a good idea. I'm going to steal that from my district. You know, so it's just such a good, like the camaraderie of people who were so dedicated and passionate about pushing the envelope a little bit higher. And how can we raise the bar? How can we raise that bar? And oh, you're doing that. Okay, let's do this. You know, it was just, it was really, really cool for us to create that cohort.

00:08:34 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, and then you probably, as we did and all of us did, from that came a lot of site visits.

So we had other school districts come to our districts, and not only the school food service director, but in many instances, the parents or a superintendent or an educator. because they were wanting to see what you were doing and how you were doing it. And so we were that model, if you will. But it was exciting. It was good times. Yeah.

00:09:10 Michelle

So our keynote speaker today, Ron Finley. Ron Finley talked about telling your story however you want to. Start at the beginning, start at the end, start in the middle. But Jen, I'm really curious how, like, what your passion was getting into nutrition services, but then also, like, what are you doing now? Because you also transitioned out of it.

00:09:35 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah, so I became a dietitian because I had a health problem in high school that only nutrition could solve. So after a year of doctors and specialists and all these people who were supposed to be able to figure this out, couldn't figure it out. And then I went to someone who specialized in nutrition. It was the first time someone was able to figure out what was going on in my body and how to fix it through food. So that happened to me in high school. And it was largely because I was a big athlete, like most good Texans are… You're doing a lot of sports. And then in the cafeteria, I would eat like French fries and a Trix bar. That was my lunch. And so in high school, that was my I knew my life's purpose was to help heal people and nourish them through food. And at the same time, how do we take care of our planet to do that as well? Because you can't do one without the other. So I just happened to see this job posting for a school district supervisor. So I thought, you know, I'm really into food systems. I'm really into the sustainable food systems. If I get into a school district, maybe I can start to like impact how procurement is performed and we can start to tip the scale towards better food at scale. And then I went to a school the first day and I saw the kids. I was in my mid-20s at that time, so kids weren't on my radar. But they stole my heart. And so at first it was really about procurement and the impacts large-scale procurement can have on the planet. And then it became all about the kids at the same time for me once I met them. So then six months in, my director and they just put me into the director position and just said, figure it out.

00:11:13 Michelle

Six months.

00:11:14 Christy Sherding

Six months.

00:11:15 Jenn Lovewell

And I was like 24 or something. I got this.

00:11:19 Michelle

You don't know any better at that age.

00:11:20 Jenn Lovewell

You're like, I can do anything. Exactly. The confidence of you. Yes, exactly. And you don't need as much sleep.And you're just so, you're like…

00:11:28 Michelle

And you were an athlete, so you got this.

00:11:30 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah. So, but then I got a crash course in school food very quickly, and had to learn how to work with my passion and fervor and ideals along with staff, large staff and pushback that can come sometimes in school kitchens. But yeah, we figured it out and we worked, and so we were starting to get in local produce. grass-fed meat from the hills of, the California hills over like in the ocean, just incredible products for our kids.

00:11:59 Michelle

Amazing.

00:12:00 Jenn Lovewell

And that's what I loved about school food was this, it's like a big jigsaw puzzle every day of how are we going to feed kids first of all, but how am I going to work with my budget and my.. the procurement regulations and this school site, how are we going to do all this? But again, pushing the envelope and making it better, it just, it was so fun to see it as a big problem to be solved. And then you solve a problem and you want to go into the next one and, addicting almost to like, keep going.

00:12:30 Miguel Villareal

I used to, the analogy I used talking about sports, the analogy that I would use at that time was that because we were doing so many incredible things that are truly perceived as winning, if you will, like if you think about a sport, and achievements that came from this, like students interested in what was being served in the cafeteria and so forth, and just parents being excited about what you were doing, or farmers being excited, and those stories being shared. That brought in others into our fold, and I'm sure you saw that as well, because they wanted to be part of that team.

00:13:13 Christy Sherding

It's contagious.

00:13:13 Miguel Villareal

It's contagious. It's like, I mean, I used to say, when I first arrived in the school district, I made a lot of phone calls. I made a lot of phone contacts trying to reach out to people that I needed help with. Within a year to two years, I never picked up the phone and I had more support than I needed. But I never said no. I just kept opening the door because there was something for someone everywhere, whether it was in the classroom or whether it was in the kitchen or, with procurement or how to education or taste test or on and on and on. If you wanted to be a part of, as you know, Jen, if you wanted to be a part of school food services, there's so many different things that people could be participate in. And feel their passion and then also be recognized for their creativity and their participation in those endeavors.

00:14:16 Michelle

Which sounds like, Jen, maybe exactly what you were doing as you were transitioning out of school nutrition services. Like what problem were you trying to solve when you launched the initiative you're working on now.

00:14:28 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah, so we, so I was finding all this, great produce, great other proteins. And I was the director in Monterey, California, which if you've ever been, it's a fishing town, you know.

00:14:39 Michelle

I've been there for the monarchs. Yeah, I've been there a couple times for the monarch migration.

00:14:45 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah, but there's like the wharf and it's just been, it just has this heritage and this feeling about it, like an old, you know, Italian and Portuguese fishing village. And even in my staff, a lot, almost all of our kitchen managers were daughters of Italian fishermen and wives of fishermen. And so it was even this like subculture within our department and the stories, that the women would tell of like going home from school and eating fresh anchovies on toast. And so, but then we, all we could do was serve frozen fish sticks from Pollock, you know, from Alaska to our kids, but they're looking at the ocean from their classrooms. And I could not find… So now, once more about the fishing industry, you realize that that's all a facade. It's all, you know, now it's the Fisherman's Wharf is used to sell cotton candy and, you know, taffy and t-shirts. You know, there's not even like...

00:15:39 Michelle

That's what I bought my kids there, I'll admit it.

00:15:43 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah. And it's fun, but it just, it's such a disconnect from between what it was and also what it is in terms of this like ocean, you know, a town that exists on the ocean.

So I, but I really, then I became obsessed with how do I get my kids local fish. And also for my staff who, this is part of their story, and I don't want them to serve, food is powerful, food is so meaningful for like how we grow up, what we, and so just for, even as a service to them, to serve frozen fish sticks felt like a disservice. So I met a gentleman who had just started a local, like a direct CSF a community-supported fishery company, so they were doing really innovative stuff with applying the farmer model to fish, where you were people were in the community were subscribing to get local deliveries of fresh fish, whatever was coming across the docks.

00:16:36 Michelle

I've never heard of that. I've worked on CSA Farms, but I think.

00:16:39 Jenn Lovewell

I'm so surprised too.

00:16:40 Christy Sherding

I want to CFF where I'm from. I live in Michigan, so it's a little bit different.

00:16:45 Jenn Lovewell

But no, that's amazing. Maybe LSF, the Lake. So just really committed, he grew up on an island. He's now my husband, so excellent.

00:16:57 Christy Sherding

I love this evening.

00:16:59 Michelle

Let's talk about this.

00:17:01 Jenn Lovewell

So I had met Alan. He's a really nice guy.

00:17:04 Christy Sherding

They call it a they call it a meet cute. That's a meet cute.

00:17:07 Michelle

A meet cute.

00:17:07 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah, when you literally meet cute. Fish cute.

Yeah. So I was, you know, talking to him about this and he was teaching me all kinds of about the seafood industry and how there was just there was no local fish in Monterey anymore and that's why I couldn't get it. And because no one else would talk to me about it, they would just say like, we're not interested, So then he was like, I can get you local fish. And I was like, but here's my budget. I need it to be, I need it to be like 75 cents for, you know, two ounce. And he was like, what? Two ounce, what? Yeah, he was like, that, you know, there's no way. Maybe if you're getting like bait, you know?

00:17:49 Christy Sherding

Serving kids bait.

00:17:53 Jenn Lovewell

Maybe. So then he got obsessed too. And then he started talking to local fishermen and found out that there was a species called grenadier, which is caught as a bycatch with black cod, which is a really strong, a really thriving fishery in the Monterey Bay. And the grenadier has no market, so they were tossing it back overboard dead because there's no market.

00:18:16 Christy Sherding

Wasteful.

00:18:17 Jenn Lovewell

So wasteful.

00:18:17 Michelle

This is brilliant.

00:18:19 Jenn Lovewell

And it's delicious. It's nutritious. It's just like a white flaky fish. What does it taste like? It's like a, it's just like white delicious fish, you know?

00:18:27 Christy Sherding

Like, I mean, I love that.

00:18:29 Jenn Lovewell

Perfect for kids, you know? Well, I mean, if not fishy, like, yeah, not fishy.

00:18:35 Miguel Villareal

Not a strong fishy flavor.

00:18:36 Jenn Lovewell

And so we were able to say, tell the fisherman, okay, we're going to start paying you to keep that fish. because it's, which is better for them because they're already pulling it up, all that time, the bait, all the, labor to pull it in, and then otherwise they're just throwing it back overboard because there's no point to it. So they're like, okay, we're going to pay you to start keeping it. You know, we need it, you know, 75 cents for the whole fish, which works out, then it'll work out for my budget. So they were so happy with that to now be paid because they wanted to sell this fish, but there's just no market for it.

00:19:07 Michelle

But then what do you do with it?

00:19:09 Christy Sherding

Yeah, how did you make it? I'm picturing like it's on a boat.

00:19:14 Michelle

How the heck do you get it?

00:19:17 Christy Sherding

I jump right into what did you make with it?

00:19:19 Michelle

I'm like, can we go through the steps?

00:19:21 Miguel Villareal

Michelle wants to take it off the boat.

00:19:24 Christy Sherding

But I'm like, well, what are we what are we eating?

00:19:26 Michelle

She's got like the buttercream something going on. I seriously, because Miguel, right? Like all the things you've had to figure out around distribution. And I mean, we have trouble in schools on just pack size of carrots or apple sizing from, small boys to. I just can't imagine how you managed all these logistics with seafood.

00:19:50 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah. Well, you have to just start small. You know, we did, we were, I think pilot is like the most beautiful word in the English language. You know, it's just, it breaks down all barriers. So we were just like, and just having the spirit of like, we'll figure it out. You know, let's just try it. Let's not like overcomplicate it. We'll just try it.

00:20:09 Miguel Villareal

Let's do it. Every story that I hear that's been successful, it's about this pilot program, one meal,

one school, and just really, I mean, Jen, you probably did the same thing as you brought, when you really got to that point, you brought the key stakeholders in and said, I want you to see what we're doing with this, because you want them to invest in that program. All these, it's like we know we have the roadmap, we know what to do, but sometimes people are trying to make it more difficult than what it is. And I say that because people like Jen, will try to find a way and will find a way. Where others that have been in the system for a long time, it's just overwhelming. It's like, it's just one more thing they've got to figure out. And for Jen, it's like, I'm going to solve this problem. And something that she said you made, I picked up on it earlier, just because I've known her for a long time. And I knew her before she had kids, her own kids. But she said something and I picked up on it and nobody would ever know this, but she referred to the kids at her school when she was referring to the fish. She was like, I want to share, I feed my kids the, healthy food. Now, you might have thought she was talking about her own kids, because Jen has now her own children. But, that's another level is, people truly just Jen talked about earlier, the children really captured her heart, the kids in the school, and they were your kids. Yeah. And she wanted to make sure that, she did the best for them. So I also want to hear more of the story. So keep going.

00:21:53 Christy Sherding

I forgot what step we were on.

00:21:58 Michelle

I want to go back and forth. Miguel, did you serve seafood?

00:22:02 Miguel Villareal

No, because we, no….

00:22:05 Michelle

Say why, because I'm most schools don't. That's why I like.

00:22:07 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, no, that's not big areas. It had nothing to do with the fact that I didn't want to serve seafood. I arrived in a community that's surrounded by over 60 organic farms. When I started working as a school food service director, I inquired, what farms are we buying our food from? That's very one of the first questions I asked. We're not buying it from any farms, I said. where are you getting your produce from a large distributor. And I said, but you've got all these farms.

00:22:39 Christy Sherding

It's like in the backyard.

00:22:41 Miguel Villareal

60 certified organic farms within a 20 to 25 mile radius. So that was, anyway, so for me, that's answering the quest and cattle country, but that's answering the fish quest. That's why I was trying to address just trying to get some fruits and veggies.

00:23:01 Michelle

Right, starting somewhere. So a lot of the schools I've talked with, the barriers are in a form that you can cook, serve, and is acceptable at your price point. So how did you work through all that? Because you've been very successful.

00:23:17 Jenn Lovewell

So again, we were just like, let's just pilot this. You know, we picked one high school. We worked with the student.. I love that there is a student sustainability club.

00:23:29 Christy Sherding

That is so cool.

00:23:31 Jenn Lovewell

And they became the advocates, they were promoting it, made posters like local fish tacos this Tuesday. And they did, student announcements, all that. So they were kind of like the promotional part of it. And I went in and, we did a little bit of recipe testing with the kitchen manager, who's one of those daughters of the fishermen. And just, you could see the difference she felt in preparing that food versus something, there was just so much care and attention and pride. She had so much pride in cooking like fresh fish from the Monterey Bay. And what we found is that, we started out with a whole filet of fish. So we just got the fish full filets, so head removed just the side of the fish that you could. Okay. And we found, we just put it on a baking sheet and then fish cooks so fast. It's ready, you know, within like 6 minutes, it's ready. And it's so flaky, so you don't have to spend all this time like pre-chopping it and dicing it. It's so flaky, you just, now that it's baked, you take your two-ounce spoodle, Hopefully you have an audience of food service directors who know what a spoodle is. But that's your portion size. So you could just scoop it up and then put it in your fish tacos. And it was actually so much easier than probably even the spicy chicken sandwich, you know, to have to like wrap it in the paper. And, you know, it was about the same level of effort as I feel like a taco is like.

00:24:58 Christy Sherding

Meeting them where they're at too, because it's something that they're used to eating, right? And just swapping the protein. And starting with high school students is brilliant, because at least, well, most high school students, you can reason with them, right? Like they understand versus, you know, if you're pre-K or kindergarten or something.

00:25:16 Jenn Lovewell

And they're excited about like new things and stuff they see, you know?

00:25:19 Miguel Villareal

And their palate's a little bit more advanced, you know, so in high school, they're willing to try new things.

00:25:27 Jenn Lovewell

Yeah. And we sold out that first day. On our pilot, we sold out. We sold more fish tacos than we sold pizza and spicy chicken sandwiches.

00:25:34 Michelle

I've never heard that. Okay.

00:25:35 Christy Sherding

That's awesome. Awesome.

00:25:36 Jenn Lovewell

And so that was the idea with the pilot is, you know, we're not attached to the outcome of this. You know, we don't, if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And then it, the program allowed to show us that it wanted to be a program. You know, it was like clear that, okay, there's something there. So, we can now build on this, but.

00:25:53 Michelle

And you did, so you went from a pilot, you built on it in your own district, and now what are you doing with this amazing.

00:25:59 Jenn Lovewell

So, in 2019, I, Alan and I, we got married in, I don't know, 2016, and then you should know Sorry, Miguel, you remember my timeline, right?

00:26:12 Miguel Villareal

I remember the babies.

00:26:15 Jenn Lovewell

Good priorities. So we got married in 2016 and then 2019 we had our first, our first real, my first actual kid, not just the kids I was feeding. And then, just decided to put all of our, all of our efforts into the, family business. What could go wrong, And the family business is real good fish.

00:26:38 Michelle

Real good fish.

00:26:39 Jenn Lovewell

And now we have, really strong presence in California. We sell to universities, hospitals, K through 12 schools up and down the state. And then Bay to Tray is our program. Yep.

00:26:53 Miguel Villareal

And we've already figured it like, yeah, I got a name for you.

00:26:59 Jenn Lovewell

That's a name.

00:26:59 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, that's a name. That's really the name.

00:27:02 Jenn Lovewell

Then in the last few years, we expanded out to the Chesapeake Bay watershed, the Mid-Atlantic, because they have a wild blue catfish, super invasive problem. So one of my friends that we were ambassadors with, she went out there, Sandy Kerwood. She went out there to run the State Department. You know Sandy. Sandy's amazing. She was one of our fellow ambassadors. So it was me, Miguel, Sandy, and Rodney Taylor… And Pilar. It's like a rock star group of people doing amazing things.

00:27:35 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, we still are good friends.

00:27:39 Jenn Lovewell

So Sandy said, Come out, can you help us, you know, come out and start to address the Blue Catfish Program? and build a bay to tray supply chain and program out here on the East Coast.

00:27:48 Michelle

Well, I know listeners are going to be so excited about that and learning more. So we'll be sure to include all of that information in the show notes. We really appreciate you both making time out of the conference to thank you. This has been extraordinary. Thanks for letting us tell our story. You all have done a great job of this conference.

00:28:04 Miguel Villareal

Yeah, it took a lot of effort. As you know, we're not in the best of times in our in our country, but difficult for people to get here. And so what makes it even more, makes it more appealing, if you will, and rewarding is the fact that people made, found a way. They found a way to get here. And I've heard so many different stories of how they managed that. And another story, The other story I want to share is...

00:28:40 Michelle

We literally are in a hallway and getting stopped and people are taking photos and waving and it's been very exciting.

00:28:47 Michelle

So about how many people are here?

00:28:48 Miguel Villareal

So close to 1000 people are here. And the thing that I want to share...

00:28:56 Michelle

Erin Croom is taking our photos and she has episode number 27.

00:29:01 Michelle

I made that up, but you can check out Small Bites.

00:29:05 Miguel Villareal

But yeah, but close to 1000 people found a way to get to Albuquerque, yes. And I was gonna say, Diane Harris, one of the things, do you know Diane Harris?

00:29:18 Michelle

Of course.

00:29:18 Miguel Villareal

So Diane Harris, who was on her board of the National Farm to School Network a few years back, I think she put it best, honestly. She said, you know, I thought I could stay home or I can come get some therapy by being in the room with all these people. And so that's what, that was my first experience when I went to one of these conferences. Not so much, well, therapeutic, but just the fact that we were in the room with the people that were like-minded, that were innovative, creative, and resourceful. and caring and passionate in all the things that we want others to aspire to be. And so it's just, and that energy just continues to, draw.

00:30:10 Christy Sherding

The passion is palpable here, I think.

00:30:13 Miguel Villareal

Absolutely.

00:30:13 Christy Sherding

For sure. Everyone's happy, everyone's smiling. We're sitting in a hallway and there's not like a sad face walking by. They're all hugs and kisses and photos and all the things and like it's just such good energy to be around.

00:30:25 Miguel Villareal

Absolutely. Yeah, that's a very good point. And Jen, I used to have people, you probably had the same thing. When people came to our school districts, they'd say, you know, from other states. You know what I've noticed is that the children are all smiling and laughing. And so, it just goes back to what Jim was saying earlier, that food, that impact not only on physical health, but mental health, environment, and so on and so forth. It just, it really, I said it earlier, food is power, and it has the power to change lives.

00:31:03 Jenn Lovewell

I actually found the better food we started serving, the more calm and polite kids were in line. So I, there was, and I didn't study it, I didn't bring out like a research. You observed it. So that's like a study. And it was like the days we had just packaged stuff, it was like they were more rowdy, just the energy was different. But the days we served a beautiful plate of local, local food, local produce, and, really put I think what food you feed people sends them messages, and I think they were picking up on the message that we were sending through food, that they were loved and cared for, and someone took the time for them.

00:31:44 Michelle

And I think someone made us food that is ready now that we can have.

00:31:48 Christy Sherding

On that note.

00:31:51 Miguel Villareal

I'm starving.

00:31:51 Miguel Villareal

There is food for us.

00:31:52 Michelle

Yeah, let's go.

00:31:52 Miguel Villareal

You want to? Let's go. Grab the reception. All right, well, thank you for inviting me and to join you, Jen. I appreciate that. Thank you for your kindness and having me join this podcast. It was an honor, honestly, to listen to your story.

00:32:07 Jenn Lovewell

Thanks for doing this. And thanks, Michelle. Thanks for getting these stories out there.

00:32:11 Michelle

Bye. Thanks everyone so much for listening today. And Christy Sherding from the Henry Ford, thank you so much for being our special guest co-host. And Miguel for just popping in, walking down the hall at the conference and making time to interview with Jen. It really helped that a lot.

00:32:34 Rick

Yeah, if you want to hear more of Miguel, you search for him. We did an episode with him a year or two ago. So anyway, thanks again, Miguel. Farm to School was written, directed, and produced by Rick Sherman and Michelle Markesteyn with production support from Leanne Locher and Lauren Tobey of Oregon State University. This podcast was made possible by, in part, by a grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.

00:33:00 Michelle

The content and ideas of the Farm to School podcast do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Oregon State University or the United States Department of Agriculture. USDA and OSU are equal opportunity providers and employers. I'm getting good at saying that faster.

00:33:11 Rick

You are. I know.

00:33:12 Michelle

I was thinking I could go into like, you know, like those auctioneers.

00:33:18 Rick

I don't think you're there yet. But hey, Michelle, do you want to learn more about Farm to School?

00:33:23 Michelle

Michael, do you want to learn more about Farm to School?

00:33:24 Michael Rosenberger

Yes, I do.

00:33:27 Michelle

Check out our other episodes, show notes, contact information, and so much more by searching up Farm to School Podcast OSU.

00:33:34 Rick

We would love to hear from you. Stop by the website Michelle just mentioned. Say hello. Give us an idea for a future podcast. All right. Bye, everybody.

00:33:42 Michelle

Bye. Thank you.