The school lunches at Onion Creek School in rural Stevens County are so enticing that students who transfer schools, or graduate to high school, sometimes return just for lunch. The kindergarten through eighth-graders serve themselves in a buffet line, and recently they enjoyed homemade chicken parmigiano pizza. They can always pick from as many as six different vegetables and fruits. Most of the produce is fresh. And some is grown by local farmers.

“I hope they get a taste of some things they ordinarily wouldn’t taste,” says Linda Keller, food services director. Plus, Keller feels good knowing her students are building lifelong habits of eating whole – and wholesome – foods.

This fresh veggie-fresh fruit emphasis works well in the Onion Creek School District, because the entire district has only 38 students. Could other districts, no matter how large, emulate Onion Creek? The Local Farms-Healthy Kids Act aims to do just that.

The act, passed this legislative session and recently signed by Gov. Chris Gregoire, seeks to simplify the current food procurement system, which, as the law itself admits, “may inhibit the purchase of locally produced food.” It will also award a limited number of grants to a “mix of urban and rural schools to provide free Washington grown fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the school day.”

Great ideas. Maybe our chubby kids will chow down on locally grown apple slices, leaving less room for that ubiquitous “vegetable” known as ketchup.

But the act will require intense collaboration among farmers and school districts. And both groups will need help harvesting their way through the bureaucracy of the state’s school lunch requirements. Schools buy in bulk to save money. They sign two- and three-year contracts with food providers, making it hard for local farmers to “break in.” Most vegetables and fruits ripen in the summer, but school doesn’t start until fall. How do you preserve that local produce for the school year?

Even Valoria Loveland, director of Washington’s Department of Agriculture, acknowledges the challenge. In a recent meeting with The Spokesman-Review editorial board she said, “What could be wrong with this? Except for all the bureaucracy that’s underneath?”

Still, she added, this is definitely a win-win-win act. The program, however, is optional for schools and districts, so parents must begin now lobbying their schools to pursue this farm-to-school lunch concept.

Can our corn-chip kids change their palates? Make the scenic drive up to Onion Creek, stand in the buffet line and watch as students heap their trays with vegetables and fruits. What a delicious sight.