MUSKEGON, Mich. — High school students in Muskegon are learning to cook for their peers while promoting locally-sourced ingredients through an innovative program that could expand access to Michigan-made meals across the district's schools.
WATCH: Muskegon high school students develop Michigan-made meals for district lunch programs
The Cultivate Michigan program, housed at the Career Tech Center in Muskegon, teaches students in a three-credit Hospitality and Food Management class to develop recipes using seasonal, locally-sourced ingredients that eventually make their way onto school breakfast and lunch menus.
"Every six to eight weeks, we do a cycle where we introduce a new seasonal vegetable, and usually a dry bean as well, and we teach the kids all aspects of it," said Elissa Pelczar, Career Tech Center's Food System Coordinator.
The year-long course takes students through three Cultivate Michigan projects, each featuring different seasonal products. The project launching Thursday centers around winter squash and green beans.
"They're versatile," Pelczar said. "They're everywhere, right? People can grow them themselves. You can buy them. It's something that school food service programs can access super easily, and that matters to us in this."
The program follows a structured approach to menu development. Students conduct three rounds of internal taste tests before collectively deciding on two to three meals to feature in school breakfasts and lunches.
"In round one of the tasting, we don't constrain them too much," Pelczar said. "So I'm hoping that we're going to get a butternut squash popsicle, or, you know, some kind of great freeze dried acorn squash."
All ingredients are Michigan-made and provided at no additional cost to students.
"We're giving them authentic, real world experiences and opportunities to grow and develop themselves," Pelczar said.
The program's scope may depend on whether state funding for free school breakfasts and lunches receives approval.
FOX17 spoke to Food Service Director for Montague and North Muskegon Area Public Schools, Dan Gorman, back in August, about the impact of free school breakfasts and lunches.
Gorman adds Tuesday that the Cultivate Michigan program will continue regardless, though it may operate on a smaller scale if the necessary funding is not approved.
"If that funding piece changes, we still have the commitment to deliver that high quality product to our students," Gorman said. "What's going to change is our ability and the breadth of which we can do it to."
Currently, high school juniors and seniors participating in Cultivate Michigan projects represent 11 of Muskegon's public school districts and three charter and private schools.
"We just consistently see kids rising to the challenge. And they start here, maybe uncertain, and they leave here, leading the way," said Pelczar.
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