Schools are back to "normal" and we've been working with some individual districts to help them purchase and promote more locally grown and NYS produce. We even, for the first time, sold Long Island grown strawberries to one district, which were very well received. 

As part of the nationwide Farm to School initiative, in 2011 Shulman  created a program to sell potatoes and local vegetables to  Long Island school districts, in addition to educating the children about local farms and produce.
  Working with the NYS Department of Ag and Markets and the  Long Island schools, Shulman developed and is  packing a special bag of potatoes for school chefs/cooks to incorporate Long Island potatoes into their lunches. See below press release. Shulman started selling a limited number of school districts through the LI School Food Co op and were granted permission through Albany to sell all of Area K (all of the LI districts).

Shulman is also now selling Long Island corn, cabbage, turnips, cauliflower, broccoli, hard squash, and kale to the school districts on Long Island.

Additionally, we have added NYS Apples, pears, cabbage and onions  and hard squash to the list for the schools to purchase.

During the 2014-2015 school year we sold over 70,000 lbs of produce to the participating school districts. 
 This is a wonderful educational program, teaching our children and their educators not only about eating healthy food but about the farms and agriculture on Long Island.

Each year we add new items to the list of produce offered to the schools--most recently it has been kale and hard squashes.

Additionally we encourage the Food Service Directors to try new recipes (supplied by Diane) and give us feedback with regards to how they were received by their students.
 
Diane has spoken at forums  organized by NYS Ag. and Markets aimed at Food Service Directors and to members of the School Nutrition Association about this program.
 Buy local, stay vocal!