Arch Ford School Nutrition Services

10/05/2025

Our networking activity with Hillbilly Halos was a huge success! Just look at the creativity and personality! It was a great way to build camaraderie and support between colleagues.

10/05/2025

Our Directors' Leadership Retreat is in the books! It was two days of quality time spent at Abbe House Inn on the Little Red River in Heber Springs.

Participants were able to learn more about local governance and school politics with the support of guest presenters, Chris Kamradt and Elaine Revell. They enjoyed culinary demonstrations with the support of Acxion Foodservice, Affinity Group, Bongards Premium Cheese, CORE Foodservice, JTM Food Group, Lakeland Marketing, and Tyson Foods. Directors shared ideas for using artificial intelligence to simplify their work and make for more efficient use of their time. They networked around a hatmaking activity with the help of Hillbilly Halos. To finish the retreat, participants played a game focused on school nutrition challenges, stakeholders, barriers, and solutions.

Plenty of free time to enjoy the outdoors and just decompress was appreciated by all! Such a good time to build skills and camaraderie. We are looking forward to doing it again!

10/02/2025

We are preparing to start our Directors' Leadership Retreat in beautiful Heber Springs, Arkansas, this weekend! This is a unique opportunity for participating Child Nutrition Directors to network and collaborate with other school nutrition professionals and build upon leadership skills to drive the future of our profession. We are happy to host this dynamic group of individuals and look forward to the coming days ahead!

08/01/2025

This year's Training, Networking, and Team Building Conference is in the books! Our emphasis this year was on vegetables and the many ways vegetables may be served. The culinary classes knocked it out of the park with Asian Chicken, Fiesta Chicken, and Mediterranean Salads (vegetarian) along with similar choices in a wrap as well! They standardized a recipe for chicken bacon ranch flatbread and practiced making a vegetable option with beets and blueberries and another with a variety of root vegetables that could be made thinner into a soup or thicker as a vegetable dip. Arch Ford is committed to timely and relevant training for school nutrition staff. Stay tuned for what is next!

07/30/2025

Tomorrow is the first day of our 2025 School Nutrition Services Training, Networking, and Team Building (SNS TNT) Conference! We are looking forward to hosting school nutrition staff from 14 different school districts at Nemo Vista School District for two days of intense training in program regulations and reporting, culinary arts, technology skills, and CPR/First Aid. The new school year is upon us and we will be ready!

07/24/2025

Arch Ford recognizes Cassidy Brown, Child Nutrition Director for Atkins School District, for her commitment to local farm-to-school initiatives. She plans for a variety of farm fresh foods in school meals each week and was recently asked to share her knowledge and experience at the meeting of the Arkansas Farm to School Collaborative. Thanks for all you do, Cassidy, to serve healthful school meals to students in your community!

Connecting schools, farms, and the community to local food MISSION The Arkansas Farm to School Collaborative envisions a future for Arkansas in which every school and community provides a healthy environment for every child. The Collaborative foresees leaders at every level who have developed suppor...

07/24/2025

A new school year comes into focus and school meals remains a great value for children and their families. We encourage students to take a look at what is offered in the school cafeteria even if it is to supplement a lunch from home!

07/04/2025

The Seamless Summer Option at Clinton School District remains in full swing! Clinton 1st United Methodist Church has been a partner in the effort with their legion of volunteers to pack over 600 food boxes for children! It takes a village!

06/15/2025

Arch Ford is proud to support the efforts of Clinton School District as they implement an expansion of their Seamless Summer Option (SSO) summer feeding program for children to include non-congregate summer food boxes. It has been a labor of love for children and the community, but there are obvious rewards. Thanks to Clinton SD staff for their hard work and dedication to get the job done every day!

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Load that truck! Our hardworking staff are loading for another summer food box distribution route. Routes go north to Alread and Dennard on Tuesday and south to Bee Branch and Scotland on Thursday. Meals in Clinton are distributed on Tuesday.

Next week's requests are at 527 summer food boxes as of today. The deadline to register for next week's distribution is 6pm on Saturday. Register only once for the summer. Your children will remain on our distribution list as long as they are collecting their food boxes. Unclaimed food boxes will be distributed to other children.

04/26/2025

Arch Ford has scheduled two different ServSafe Food Protection Manager Certification Training classes with testing. The dates are May 21st (Session ID 555608) and again on June 11th (Session ID 555609). Please register through escWorks at the link below using the session code for the preferred training date. Space availability will be prioritized for participants from Arch Ford School Nutrition Services consortium member school districts.

Region 4 serves a seven-county area composed of 50 public school districts and 45 public charter schools, representing more than 1.1 million students, 87,000 educators, and 1,500 campuses.

02/26/2025

Congratulations to Priscilla Riedel-Cohan, Program Coordinator for School Nutrition Services, on her selection to USDA's Produce Safety University. Priscilla serves a dual role in the Arch Ford Education Cooperative area as both a regional consultant for our consortium members and Child Nutrition Director for Clinton School District.

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01/30/2025

Arch Ford is currently scheduling ServSafe Food Protection Manager training and testing over the next six months. For information, including scheduled dates and locations as they become available, please contact Priscilla Riedel-Cohan at [email protected].