Ten-year-old Brent Thompson gripped the handlebars tight and pedaled furiously.

“It feels weird,” he said after hopping off the bike. “It feels like you’re going on a rough dirt road.”

But the Indian Valley Elementary School fifth-grader wasn’t biking on rocky terrain. In fact he wasn’t really biking at all. Thompson was making cornmeal using a bicycle powered corn grinder.

The high intensity corn grinding was part of Monday’s Farm to School workshop at the Floyd County school, where students harvested local corn and learned about healthy eating. The cornmeal later will be used by the cafeteria staff in muffins the students will eat.

Thompson said the process made him tired, but he liked it.

“It’s just kind of cool. You know you’re riding a bike, but you’re grinding corn,” he said. “It could be used for chicken feed, corn bread, corn muffins.”

Organizers of Monday’s workshop, which include personnel from Sustain Floyd and New River Valley Community Services, want students to make that connection between produce grown on the farm and what ends up on their plate. The activity was for fourth- and fifth-grade students at the school.

Katie Van Horn is the NRV Community Services prevention specialist for Floyd County for childhood obesity. Van Horn said that teaching healthy eating is one part of the Farm to School program, and when children have a connection to the fruits and vegetables being grown they are likely to consume more of those.

She said the two main components of the program are bringing fresh, local produce into schools and education about healthy eating.

“Just because food has corn it doesn’t mean it’s as good as corn on the cob,” she said, explaining that she’s teaching students to read the ingredients and ask themselves does the food look similar to how it does in nature.

In between removing kernels from the cobs of corn and grinding them into cornmeal, Van Horn talked with students about the difference between whole foods and processed foods. The idea is that students will learn more about how to make healthy choices and ultimately cut down on childhood obesity.

“The habits we start as young children continue through adulthood,” Van Horn said.

A grant from the Virginia Foundation for Healthy Youth awarded to Floyd County’s Healthy Community Action Team, which includes NRV Community Services, paid for Monday’s activities.

Mike Burton, Sustain Floyd director, said because Floyd County is still an agricultural community and there’s desire to keep it that way, it’s important to teach students lessons about where food comes from and give them access to local produce.

He said students at the school were enthusiastic about Monday’s activities. Some appeared particularly enthralled as Burton operated, with their assistance, the hand-powered sheller, which takes the kernels off the cob.

Students grabbed yellow cobs of corn from a large, white sack and took turns putting them into the sheller. At one end full cobs of corn went in and at the other end yellow kernels splashed into a bucket and bald cobs of corn fell to the ground.

“It’s hard. You’ve got the hardest job,” he told students.

Fourth-grader Caileigh Chaffin, 9, was among those helping out Burton. She disagreed with him and said the bike grinder was the toughest job. Caileigh said it took a lot of work to grind the corn, but she was having fun.

“I like to watch it go through,” she said of the cobs of corn going through the sheller, adding she liked it better than typical classroom activities. “It’s more fun.”

Weather Journal

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