Mountain Valley High School nutrition service staff Mindy Bourret, left, and Jamie Pepin stand Tuesday by the salad bar as they prepare to serve students lunch at the high school. The students have food options from the salad bar, sandwich bar or pizza every day as well as the entree of the day. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

RUMFORD — The Mountain Valley High School nutrition staff was busy early Tuesday morning preparing Asian noodle stir fry with teriyaki chicken and dumplings for around 200 student lunches, as well as lunches to be delivered to other schools in the district.

That morning they were expecting a couple of deliveries of apples and peaches from Berry Fruit Farm of Livermore. They also have yogurt delivered regularly from Milk House Dairy in Monmouth, Jeanne LaPointe, Regional School Unit 10 nutrition director, said. “The kids really like it; it’s a really nice product,” she said about the yogurt.

The district is able to provide fresh and local foods due to a $113,700 Healthy Meals Incentives Grant through the United States Department of Agriculture, which they’ve used throughout last year and this school year.

Mountain Valley High School nutrition Production Manager June Hostetter, left, stirs teriyaki noodles as school nutrition Director Jeanne LaPointe stands nearby in the cafeteria at the school on Tuesday. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

“We wrote the grant to include more food production equipment, training for staff, and a chef consultant to come in and help us work through some of our training,” LaPointe said.

The funding also enables the staff to prepare more scratch or in-house made meals for students, which are prepared an average of two out of five days of the week, LaPointe estimated.

The school’s nutrition department has also been ordering beef from Jade’s Homegrown at the Thurston Farm in Rumford as well as using Maine Marinara sauce, which is processed with over 50% of its ingredients from Maine farms. “There’s a lot of effort around the state to help us purchase more local food, and in a way that it’s more easy for us to incorporate it into our daily production,” LaPointe said.

In addition, the department had specialized culinary training over the summer for nutrition service staff Jamie Pepin and Mindy Bourret, paid for by a 5210 MaineHealth grant.

The two women received a weeklong training at Mt. Blue High School in Farmington in vegetable preparation and further culinary techniques, which they shared with the rest of the nutrition staff at the start of the school year.

Mountain Valley High School nutrition service staff Erin Baker displays a sheet of freshly made cornbread as the staff prepares lunch for around 200 students at the high school. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times

In the kitchen on Tuesday, Bourret explained that part of their training over the summer involved choosing salad bar items that will complement the main meal choice of the day. “So, like, today is an Asian noodle stir fry. So (we) did an edamame (for the salad bar) with a soy sauce and lime zest,” she said.

The nutrition staff has also received training over the past three years from chef consultant Ron Adams, who has been with the district as part of the USDA Farm to School Grant, which ends this year.

The Healthy Meals Incentives Grant has enabled the district to purchase kitchen products for Buckfield Junior-Senior High School, such as a Combi Oven, a new mixer and a new salad bar enclosure. “So, we were able to do a lot, and we’ve purchased a lot of what are called small wares; utensils, containers, knives, and immersion blenders,” LaPointe said.

In October, the nutrition staff production managers and LaPointe plan to attend an awards ceremony in Las Vegas sponsored by the Healthy Meals Incentives Grant. “These people are innovators; clearly innovators, (and) they’re going out to receive an award for their hard work,” LaPointe said.

Mountain Valley High School nutrition Production Manager June Hostetter shows Tuesday’s lunch entree, Terriyaki noodles with Terriyaki chicken and dumplings, at the school in Rumford. Marianne Hutchinson/Rumford Falls Times