Madison County Schools join Kentucky Proud

Madison County Schools join Kentucky Proud

http://www.richmondregister.com/localnews/local_story_025083848.html

By Tim Mandell
Register News Writer
Madison County Schools has long been committed to providing students with locally grown food products.

The school system now has taken it one step further, becoming Kentucky Proud, according to Erin Stewart, community education director for Madison County Schools.

Kentucky Proud is the “buy local” initiative of the Kentucky Department of Agriculture designed to help communities by keeping food dollars at home, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture.

“We’re basically joining forces with a lot of other people across the state who are trying to promote our local growers,” Stewart said. “We already use many local suppliers and we wanted to take the extra step and let everyone know.”

Madison County Schools will be displaying the Kentucky Proud logo and will continue to work with local growers as a food source, said Emily Agee, food service director for the school system.

“We are so proud to be part of the Kentucky Proud program” she said. “We certainly do and want to continue to be good partners with our local growers and help them continue to produce quality products.”

The Kentucky Department of Agriculture states that if an agricultural product is grown, raised, or processed in Kentucky the business is eligible to be Kentucky Proud.

There are 41 Madison County consumers listed on the Kentucky Proud Web site.

“Our food service department orders a wide variety of products and fruits and vegetables from specific companies and a lot of those companies use local fresh, farm produced goods,” Stewart said. “We also get some things from local farmers and those go straight to our students.”

There are 18 schools in the district.



Tim Mandell can be reached at tmandell@richmondregister.com or 623-1669 ext. 6696.