The Mission of the Bridgeton Public School District is to provide multiple pathways for all students to attain the New Jersey Student Learning Standards and to meet the needs of our diverse student population. All students will be provided with the opportunity and resources to succeed through the creation of state-of-the-art safe learning environments which will ultimately enable all students to graduate from high school and become productive members of a global community.

Bridgeton Food Service Department’s Philosophy: “Feeding Education is Always on the Menu.” It is our belief that the cafeteria is an extension of the classroom. The BFSD offers nutritious meals daily along with nutrition education to our staff and students. Our menus emphasize whole grains, fresh produce and low-sodium items that fuel our students’ day. We participate in every program the department of agriculture offers in an effort to provide our students with every opportunity to nourish their bodies. We are labeled a 5 Star Nutrition Hub for participation in breakfast, lunch, after school snack (ASSP), fresh fruit and vegetable (FFVP), supper (At-Risk Dinner), summer feeding, and farm to school programs.

Bridgeton, a town with a strong commitment to preserving its heritage, is located in the southernmost county of New Jersey on the banks of the Cohansey River near the center of the Delaware Bay lowlands. Home to over 2,200 houses and buildings that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Bridgeton is also home to one of New Jersey’s largest exhibits of artifacts related to the Lenni Lenape tribe that first inhabited this land and served as the first farmers of what we now call the Garden State. Cumberland County boasts nearly 70,000 acres of farmland, of which 13,000 is preserved under the New Jersey Farmland Preservation Program, and accounts for nearly 20% of the state’s agricultural market value. It’s no surprise that one of the core values of Bridgeton’s school meals program is connecting their students to their agricultural roots through the local fruits and vegetables that make regular appearances in their cafeterias and classrooms.

Bridgeton Public Schools hosts 3 service members that support initiatives at both individual schools and districtwide. School-based activities include:

• Teaching hands-on gardening, cooking and nutrition education in classrooms and school gardens;
• Supporting, maintaining and leading educational programming in existing (or creating new) school gardens and supporting garden-based professional development for teachers/school leaders;
• Supporting healthy school meals by maintaining a regular presence in cafeterias, conducting taste tests with students, and gathering student feedback on menu items and promoting culturally relevant, local and seasonal fruits, vegetables and recipes;
• Supporting salad bars in cafeterias and leading salad bar-focused curriculum in classrooms;
• Creating a schoolwide culture of health by engaging the entire school community in all aspects of FoodCorps programming, including after-school and family engagement events such as Family Cooking Nights, after-school gardening clubs and/or cooking clubs, and by attending/tabling at Parent Nights and schoolwide events and celebrations.

The schools we serve: Cherry Street, Broad Street, West Avenue and Bridgeton High School. Districtwide activities include:

• Supporting local procurement efforts, menu changes that follow state-based Harvest of the Month initiatives and/or local seasonality calendars, and collect student feedback on school food throughout the district to promote student voice and choice in school meal programs;
• Working with school nutrition professionals to integrate culturally relevant menu items into breakfast, lunch and snack programs; build schoolwide cultures of health by building strong, collaborative relationships with teachers, families, and school administrators, organizing or supporting existing committees and running meetings, and supporting social media campaigns and outreach efforts to teachers, students, families and administrators about all aspects of school meal programs;
• Supporting district school gardens and greenhouses in their efforts to grow, harvest and serve produce in school meals.

Our FoodCorps service members are part of the Bridgeton Food Service family and our ideal candidates are natural born leaders with a great sense of humor, a love for food, and a deep understanding that everything we do is for our students! Flexibility, strong communication skills, and the ability to work as part of a team and independently are all skills we seek in FoodCorps candidates.

Our 3 FoodCorps service members with the Bridgeton Public Schools are part of the New Jersey cohort, which includes 14 service members with 5 sites across 5 communities in New Jersey. Don’t be fooled by what you may have heard from the haters: New Jersey is a state with a heaping spoonful of love, a dash of attitude, and a heavy sprinkle of everything nature has to offer: gorgeous beaches along the Atlantic Ocean (AKA “the shore”), hiking opportunities from the Appalachian Trail in the north to the Pine Barrens in the south, flourishing urban spaces with every kind of cuisine and art form known to planet earth, and rolling farmland stretching for as far as the eye can see. Situated between two major cities, New York and Philadelphia, New Jersey is aptly named the Garden State and home to nearly 10,000 urban and rural farms producing over 100 crops enjoyed nationwide!

Connecting New Jersey kids to local agriculture reinforces our agricultural roots, economy, and unites communities with a shared vision of improving child health and wellbeing. Like New Jersey itself, our service sites reflect a broad diversity of culture and geography. Too many New Jersey residents experience health disparities as a result of decades of systemic racism, and service members mainly serve in communities with the highest rates of food insecurity. In partnership with our network of service sites, we strive to positively impact the ways New Jersey children experience food in school by using a variety of action-driven and scientifically-backed farm to school efforts including promoting local procurement and student voice and choice in cafeterias, leading hands-on lessons in classrooms and school gardens, and by supporting our community partners to foster the culture of health that’s right for them within each unique school building we serve across the state.

Our full New Jersey cohort meets regularly throughout the year for state-based trainings with local leaders, growers and organizers to set our service members up for success for their 1-2 years of service. During the first month of service, members research and present on the place-based histories and current context of the communities we serve; are introduced to a wide variety of food justice and farm to school stakeholders at the state and local levels; practice active learning by planning and leading culturally relevant classroom lessons, garden activities and taste tests with their fellow service members before entering their schools; spend ample time cooking and sharing meals together, learning from each other, and building community as a cohort (AKA “cohort bonding”), and orienting themselves at their sites throughout August prior to the first day of school in September, all of which is necessary to serve our communities intentionally, respectfully and from a Community Assets Based Approach. Additionally, our service members participate in a wide variety of national, state, and site-based professional development and networking opportunities throughout the year that are necessary for our New Jersey service members to advance in their chosen careers following their 1-2 years of service.