Farm to School Month is a national and statewide celebration that mixes education, hands-on learning and the enjoyment of fresh, local food in myriad educational spaces during October. For the students at Deerfield Academy, every month is farm-to-school month. Located in Old Deerfield since 1797, the coeducational high school has always relied upon local farms to feed students.
Michael McCarthy is the director of food services for Deerfield Academy. The school currently serves more than 650 students three meals a day in the dining hall. McCarthy’s team also manages the on-campus Louis Café as a coffee and sandwich stop in the mornings and the Greer Store — a student hangout spot — with snacks and casual bites for the afternoons and evenings.
Because the student body is a mixture of boarding students and day students, family-style meals are a cherished communal experience and even accommodate student sports and activities. Day students are welcome at all meals.
At each family-style meal, students pick up food from the kitchen, serve their table, clear dishes, and serve dessert during announcements.
“We have 73 tables of 10 in the dining room, with one faculty member and nine students at each table,” he said. “Two students serve their table. Every few weeks, the seating plans and job assignments rotate.”
Now in his 27th year at the Academy, McCarthy maintains that this type of meal service is an important piece of the school’s culture. “Sit-down meals are a big deal for us,” he said. “They help the students learn etiquette at the table, accountability — others are depending on you to show up to serve — and an appreciation for the work of who provides their food, from the farmer to the kitchen staff. The face-to-face interactions without distraction at the table are very important for the students.”
For a school with boarding students, the dining hall is also another place where students are known and seen by staff.
“It’s fun for us. We get to see and know the kids as they take turns waiting tables,” McCarthy said. “When they really like a meal, we’ll get a big round of applause. It’s pretty cool.”
The dining hall staff cook and bake from scratch, using local ingredients as available in each season. “We have a full-service bakery. We serve well-balanced meals and find that using creative spices or coaxing the sweetness out of vegetables with roasting helps the kids enjoy a wide array of food,” McCarthy said.
Some favorites on campus include honey-sriracha lime chicken with edamame and jasmine rice; a Mediterranean bar with hummus, vegetables and homemade pita; or a sushi bowl with sticky rice, tofu and baked salmon. “They’re foodies who like flavor and spice,” McCarthy said.
Deerfield Academy has a student population from diverse backgrounds, including international students from China and Japan. As such, the dining hall works to serve culturally-familiar fare. They celebrate birthdays and holidays from many traditions.
The families of students share their food traditions and recipes with McCarthy and his team. In 2008, McCarthy and his head chef, Joe Ferrer, had an opportunity to visit China on a cultural exchange for cooking in schools. “We worked the first week in Beijing. One cultural dish we took away was a tomato and egg breakfast, which has been a really big hit here,” McCarthy said. “We serve sticky rice for breakfast now. It was a great exchange, and we got to try a lot of really good food.”
With a community reaching around the globe, cooking with local ingredients is central to the menus served in the dining hall. McCarthy’s team has longstanding relationships with area farms, and it is common to see farms delivering to the school. “We use a massive amount of fruits and vegetables. On top of the daily menus, we do an all-local meal once a term,” he said.
Some crops include corn from Antonellis farm; fruit, apple cider and cider donuts from both Clarkdale Fruit Farms and Pine Hill Orchards; milk from Mapleline Farm; turkeys from Diemand Farm; beef from Hager’s Farm; Mi Tierra Tortillas; potatoes from Barnwood Valley Farms; Little Leaf Lettuce; Cabot cheese, butter and yogurt; and many others. They also use Marty’s Local for sourcing ingredients.
Sustainability is a priority for the school and an opportunity fort he dining hall to educate students. McCarthy notes, “We use compostable table wares when needed. We teach the students to consider the environment in what they take.” Sourcing from local farms supports the school’s sustainability efforts by reducing packaging and transportation.
For example, Clarkdale Fruit Farms (both Tom and Ben Clark are alumnae) still deliver apples, peaches and pears in returnable wooden crates. “I love seeing those wooden crates that have been around for 50 years. There’s no cardboard, plastic, or packaging,” McCarthy said.
The school is renovating a new dining hall on campus that is set to open in January 2026. McCarthy explains, “We compost everything and have no food waste going to a landfill. Currently, our staff ensures this, but in the new dining hall, we have a partner equipping our new building with an industrial system to turn food waste into a slurry, which will be taken to farms with anaerobic digesters for energy.” The system will be self-contained.
In the end, serving fresh, local food to Deerfield Academy students brings McCarthy joy.
“I like to see the kids’ reactions to food: the flavors and taste of the food make a difference,” he said. “I want them to know there’s more to food than just going to the grocery store and buying off the shelf. I want the kids to know these are real people who work hard to bring us our food and to prepare it.”
Lisa Goodrich is a communications coordinator with Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA). To learn more about Deerfield Academy Dining Services, see their website at deerfield.edu.