YELLVILLE - A grant application from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) worth $110,714 has been approved during a Yellville-Summit School District Board meeting.
The Baxter Bulletin reports the approximately 50-page matching grant application - aiming at improving the existing farm to school efforts, including the school garden and the kitchen - must be submitted by Dec. 8. The USDA is expected to respond in May.
"I'm excited about the possibilities," the district superintendent, Wes Henderson, told The Bulletin. "I hope we get it because it'll be a way we can even improve our program that we have, and maybe improve the food services for our students and help pay for some equipment that we already need."
According to a Y-S School Board handout, "the purpose of the USDA Farm to School Grant Program is to assist eligible entities in implementing farm school programs that improve to local foods in eligible schools. On annual basis, USDA awards up to $5 million in competitive grants for training, supporting operations, planning, purchasing equipment, developing school gardens, developing partnerships and implementing farm to school programs."
The equipment in the kitchen is about 40 years old, especially the steamer that tends to overcook vegetables. This is something students dislike, Katherine Quinn, agriculture teacher, told The Bulletin. By upgrading the steamer, less food will be thrown away.
Additionally, for food service equipment and supplies, Yellville plans on buying 10 round café tables, a salad bar, Panini press and a salad spinner. A hydroponic table will be purchased for the garden.
"Our cafeteria needs a face-lift," Henderson told board members.
For the district to receive the award, it has laid out a budget that included a total project cost where the grant will fund 74 percent of it. The USDA requires the district show it can support the grant for the rest of the 26 percent with the district or non-federal funds.
Quinn said the district is responsible for showing receipts of its spending. That includes personnel, fringe benefits and equipment.
"We're not giving them the money," Quinn said. "We're spending the money where we said (we're going) to spend it. We just have to show we did what we said we were going to do."
According to the district records, for example, it plans on receiving $21,968.46 in personnel funds. The district needs to match that money with a total of $8,606.
In terms of fringe benefits, like health insurance, the district would be set to receive $5,208.74, and the district has to match that sum with $2,763.
Henderson said the USDA wants to see if Yellville will do its part.
Board members on Nov. 14 also approved a district transmission tower resolution, helping the district by not paying for a transmission tower that it doesn't need. At last check, Henderson said the district paid $750 for the tower a year.
The resolution stated, "the Yellville-Summit School District Board of Education has determined that the district has no further use for, or claim to, the transmission tower located on Highway 14 on the Burleson lands."
Henderson told The Bulletin he's making sure he treats every dollar that should be spent for students in the district the way that he would spend his own money.
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