On September 17, local schools with be putting on a community dinner featuring the same meals local children eat every day at school.

“It will be like a food show,” Food Service Director Darlene French said. “It's important that parents see the quality of the food we are serving at the schools, and now they get to taste it instead of just taking our word for it.”

French puts a lot of effort into keeping local schools full of fresh food that comes from Maine growers and farmers. The week of September 16 is Harvest Lunch Week, and although local food is served year-round in school, this week will have a special emphasis on it.

“On Monday, Mill Cove will be bringing in fresh haddock for lunch that day. We'll be breading it ourselves in Panko bread crumbs and cooking it. It's the freshest we can get,” French said.

Every single potato that comes into the school is a Maine potato, grown mostly up north in the Caribou regions. This year, the broccoli and root vegetables are coming from the same farms. French uses the “Farm Fresh Connection” service to help find Maine foods and limit greatly what comes in from out of state.

“I buy as much as I can from Spears Farm: green beans, tomatoes, green peppers, corn. I'll be buying butternut squash in the winter,” French said.

French is a strong believer in cooking from scratch, and works hard to limit the amounts of salt and sugar in the school lunches by keeping processed foods out of the cafeterias as much as possible. When the lunch is chicken strips, the staff cuts up pieces of chicken and makes them on site, rather than opening a giant bag of prebreaded strips.

Pazzo bread, pulled pork, stews and chowders, even the rolls: the vast majority of food in the cafeteria is made fresh that day, from scratch, often using old family recipes tweaked to reduce sugar and salt.

Even the teachers have gotten in on the quality food served in the cafeteria. Several custodians come in to eat school lunches on a daily basis, and the teachers have a special “Teacher's Cafe” in the teachers’ lounge featuring fresh soups and sandwiches made in the kitchen for lunch, and breakfast sandwiches and muffins for breakfast.

“Where else can you get a hot, balanced meal for only $2.55?” French said. “It costs between $4 and $5 to make each lunch, and the cafeteria budget picks up the rest for the kids. We don't want them to be hungry, that's the most important thing of all.”

The community dinner will take place at Boothbay Region Elementary School and is a free event open to the community, with volunteers from the cafeteria staff.

“I've wanted to do this for years,” French said. “I'm so glad it's finally happening.”

Katrina Clark can be reached at 207-633-4620 or katrinaclark@boothbayregister.com. Follow her on Twitter: @BBRegisterClark or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/BBRegisterKatrinaClark.