Fuel for Learning Partnership, a PTA Council Standing Committee, sponsored its first Food for Thought Expo on Saturday at Fairfield Warde High School to stimulate thought and bring about change in food habits and nutrition.
The walkaway message could be summed up as follows: Healthy, affordable food is available locally and in abundance and can be served in the schools in place of deep-fried processed concoctions of mysterious derivation and dubious nutrition.
The six-hour-long event filled the school's cafeteria with food booths, science displays and free food, while lectures and fun activities spilled into the adjoining corridors and classrooms.
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The idea for the expo came from mothers concerned about what their children were being fed in the Fairfield schools.
Diane Sell said her second-grade son, J.P., complained of the cafeteria food at his elementary school.
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"He says it tastes gross, he feels awful afterward and he doesn't want to go out and play," said Sell, who fixes bagged lunches except on the days pizza - which the 8-year-old finds palatable - is on the menu.
"Everything is deep-fried and processed, served on throwaway styrofoam trays and at odds with the excellent academic curriculum which teaches nutrition and healthy eating," she said.
Sell, joined by volunteers Caroline Vella, Aimee O'Brien and Senya F. Kocsi, were collecting signatures on petitions to eliminate the throwaway styrofoam trays and to begin a serious review of the school lunch program.
The Expo demonstrated that the quest for fresh, organic food can be readily satisfied in one's own backyard and in nearby Easton, where the Garden Club is promoting the 22 farms which sell produce, some of it organic, to the public.
"Easton is a farmer's market!" said Garden Clubber Jean Puchalski, echoing the club's slogan.
For example, Sport Hill Farm (596 Sport Hill Road in Easton) is cultivating seedlings for its fourth season of community-supported organic agriculture and roadside sales.
Owner Patti Popp is partnering with the Unquowa School in Fairfield to host a summer farm camp in June and July at which young campers will cultivate vegetables in their own raised beds and prepare the harvest for a farmer's market. They can also collect eggs from chickens raised organically.
Annelise McCay is creating food gardens at Fairfield schools. This year, she has signed up 11 families to take turns tending a garden through the summer months and a Brownie troop will sell off the produce at a green market in the fall. Unsold produce will go to Operation Hope.
It's McCay's hope that the garden will grow and become certified to provide food to the school system.
At Margaret Feeney's table, she explained she is growing vegetables at her family's home on Congress Street. The kale, cabbage, summer squash and onions which she believes contain nutrients that inhibit cancer growth will be donated to local residents fighting cancer.
"Kick Cancer's Butt" by eating well is the message on the Feeney Farm bumper stickers she was giving away.
Feeney's inspiration is personal: her father died of pancreatic cancer four years ago and a friend is helping her mother during her battle with breast cancer.
"I'm tired of hearing about cancer and not doing anything to help," she said, looking forward to turning over the soil on the one-acre plot in the coming days.
Children's faces were glued to the computer screen set up by Chris Allen, a plant science teacher with the Trumbull Regional Agriscience and Biotechnology Center.
Highly magnified images of parasitic wasps delicately attacking and devouring aphids were the attraction.
"We've eliminated pesticides from our green house, where aphids are endemic, by introducing natural predators," said Allen. The result is healthy, pesticide-free food and flowers.
Several booths offered natural and prepared food packed with nutrition.
Red Bees, Marina Marchese's enterprise in Weston, offered raw honey, pollen and honey-related products all made from honey collected from her bee hives.
Elizabeth Keyser was selling petite loaves of artisanal bread made by her husband at Fairfield Bread Company from organic ground flax in a 3-day process.
And at the Catch a Healthy Habit Café table, Diane Servos was selling raw nutritional snacks and Goji berries, products from the shop at 39 Unquowa Road whose owners graduated from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York.
Meanwhile, Analiese Paik, founder of the Fairfield Green Food Guide, was giving a lecture on local sustainable agriculture, and Linda Murphy was captivating children with healthy food games.
Lilah Rose Poston, 3 ½, demonstrated how easy it is to take charge of your own nutrition.
With the help of Alanna Fitzpatrick and Kelly Gerson, members of the Growing Green Club at Fairfield Ludlow High School, Lilah filled a tiny pot made of biodegradable newspaper strips with soil and 3 sunflower seeds.
"I sprayed water and I'll plant it in our yard and it will grow taller than me!" she said enthusiastically. By Indian summer, she'll have a healthy snack of sunflower seeds to harvest with her own little hands.
