Valley school food service workers take lessons from culinary chef

Eleven school districts blended together at Austintown Intermediate School to learn skills to spice up their menus during a Culinary Chef Lab from Tuesday through Friday.

Food-service employees from Boardman, Austintown, Springfield, Sebring, Youngstown City, Poland, Canfield, Warren, Fairhaven, Struthers and Niles districts volunteered eight hours a day for two of the four days to learn from Lauren McCabe, a California chef, to improve school lunches.

Bernadette Paul, Institute of Child Nutrition dietitian, said this free culinary program is to help schools provide healthier and tastier meals for students.

“The purpose of this is to support the school food service and to help them understand how we can get consistent nutrition messages out to the schools, and how we can get students to participate,” Paul said.

Read more about the program in Saturday's Vindicator or on Vindy.com.