Joseph leads the charge in getting local beef in Wallowa County school lunch program
By Garrett Christensen on Friday, April 5th, 2024 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
JOSEPH – Students in Wallowa County Schools can look forward to knowing exactly where their food is coming from, or at least the beef. Joseph Charter School’s Child Nutrition Manager, Miranda Micka, is helming a new effort to secure and process local beef donations from Wallowa County ranchers and distribute the home-grown meat to the county’s school district lunch programs.
The aptly titled Local Beef in Schools program found its origins in Baker County. During a Farm to School conference in Corvallis, Micka had a chance run-in with Baker School District’s Nutrition Program Manager, Kara Miller, who filled her in on Baker’s own local beef donation process. With funds available from a Farm to School reimbursement grant, Joseph Charter School officially announced the start of the Program on March 19, 2024.
The program itself is straight forward. Any rancher or livestock owner interested in donating beef to the schools can get in touch with Miranda Micka at 541-263-1560 to set up the donation. Arrangements are then made with Billy Bob’s Butcher Shop in Elgin to process the meat. All processing fees are paid for by the school district and the rancher will receive the receipt for a tax write off. Once the beef is ready, Miranda will pick it up and distribute it evenly between the county’s three schools.
Not only do these donations provide students with a source of higher quality home grown beef, but the entire process also serves as a learning opportunity for students. As described by Micka:
“I want our kids to experience local produce, local beef, being able to see exactly where their food’s coming from, participating in growing or raising those products and just experience their food from the time it’s planted or being raised on ranches all the way through processing it and serving it in our local cafeteria.”
To clarify, this isn’t the first time the Joseph school district has secured local beef. In the past, the school purchased and processed beef raised and shown by local students at the Wallowa County Fair. The new program does, however, represent a larger and more consistent effort to get local beef into Wallowa County school cafeterias, with Micka commenting:
“We do have some local beef that was raised by our students in the freezer right now, but we just want to be able to focus more and more on local. The less we have to buy from commodities or other places, the better.”
As of the time of writing, several local ranchers have already offered to raise beef for the program over the summer. Again, those interested in donating can contact Micka at 541-263-1560 to arrange donation and processing. To clarify, donations aren’t explicitly limited to Wallowa County ranchers, though those within the county are expected to be the main demographic of donors. Of course, this entire project, and similar ag projects by local schools, wouldn’t be possible without the support of the Wallowa County Community. As best put by Micka:
“Thank you to our local ranchers and community for supporting us and all of our projects and everything from the garden to the local beef and getting it all going.”
