Thirteen elementary school students’ art pieces have been chosen for the North Carolina Farm to School 2015-2016 calendar. This marks the fifth year for the popular contest.
The Farm to School program began in 1997 as a collaborative effort of the N.C. Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services Food Distribution and Marketing divisions. The two divisions work together to secure orders from child nutrition directors and then source and deliver locally grown fruits and vegetables for school lunch programs. During the 2014-2015 school year, the program generated nearly $1.4 million with participation by 80 school districts statewide.
“It is always interesting to see what students submit. We have so many creative and talented kids that it makes it hard to pick winners from the nearly 4,000 entries we received,” said Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler. “Students learn more about agriculture when they are working on their art pieces, plus the calendars offer them daily agricultural facts and figures to help them better understand where we get our food.”
The winners of the calendar contest and the month their artwork will represent are as follows:
Cover Art – Joseph Snow, a fifth-grader at Mountain Park Elementary in Surry County;
August 2015 – Fallon White, a third-grader at Glen Arden Elementary in Buncombe County;
September 2015 – Dylan Young, a fourth-grader at Rand Road Elementary in Wake County;
October 2015 – Bethany Arnold, a fourth-grader at Beaufort Elementary in Carteret County;
November 2015 – Sadie Cascio, a third-grader at Elizabeth Lane Elementary in Mecklenburg County;
December 2015 – Eva Patillo, a kindergartner at Chadbourn Elementary in Columbus County;
January 2016 – Ty McPhatter, a third-grader at Fletcher Elementary in Henderson County;
February 2016 – Peyton Miller, a first-grader at Rand Road Elementary in Wake County;
March 2016 – Autumn Wall, a kindergartener at Lockhart Elementary in Wake County;
April 2016 – Nicholas Hirth, a fifth-grader at Jessie Mae Monroe Elementary in Brunswick County;
May 2016 – Jenny Tran, a fifth-grader at Archer Elementary in Guilford County;
June 2016 – Rachel Scalpati, a third-grader at Ramseur Elementary in Randolph County;
July 2016 – Kaleb McNeil, a second-grader at Chicod Elementary in Pitt County.
The contest was open to all public elementary students across the state. The winners received $50 gift cards sponsored by the N.C. Farm to School Cooperative, the group of farmers supplying produce to the program.
Winners were announced at an awards ceremony at the Got to Be NC Festival in Raleigh. The winning artwork will be on display throughout the year in the Agriculture Building and at the N.C. State Fair in October.
Limited numbers of the calendars will be available through participating school systems before the start of the school year. Additional copies will be available at NCDA&CS on a first-come, first-served basis, and printer-friendly versions will be available online at www.ncfarmtoschool.com.