Augst and Hogan earn Nello Altomare Award for Excellence in School Nutrition
At the beginning of the 2024/25 school year, Robert Smith School and Ruth Hooker School students received an expansion of funding for the school’s nutrition programs. This increased nutrition funding meant the schools then started providing lunches for students three days a week. Paul Augst and Joshua Hogan brought this program to life, and now they are being recognized at a provincial level, having received the first-ever provincial Nello Altomare Award for Excellence in School Nutrition.
Paul Augst(left) and Joshua Hogan earned the Nello Altomare Award for Excellence in School Nutrition. Below: Hogan making food for the nutrition program back when it first started
The two chefs felt that it was a nice surprise to be recognized for their efforts.
“It’s not why we do it, but anytime you can be recognized for your work, it’s a great thing. And I think this being the inaugural award adds a little something special to it because it’s the first time, and you can only be first once,” said Hogan.
“In our line of work, we don’t get recognized for things like this. So, to be recognized by not only the school but the province was really good for both of us,” said Augst.
They believe that the reason the Lord Selkirk School Division’s program stands out is because of the work that they’ve put into the program and the experience that they’ve brought with them.
“We’re both dads, so having younger kids, we knew that the biggest challenge with it is going to be trying to work with pallets of the Kindergarteners to Grade 5s. But being parents, I think that kind of brought us back to when they were little, so we had that blueprint to go off of,” said Hogan.
The most important concern with feeding 350 to 400 kids in a day is food safety and sanitation, and the chefs keep that top of mind, but they also make food interesting for students.
“We try to add a lot of fresh herbs to things like fresh basil, fresh oregano, fresh parsley. It’s a way of adding a new flavour, but not something that’s going to overpower,” said Hogan.
This approach, along with taking in feedback, means that they’ve really gotten to a place where they are happy with the food, and so are the kids.
“We get the feedback from the schools, and they let us know, and then we adjust it, and we tinker with it, and we’ve gotten to a point where we’re quite comfortable with what we’re serving,” said Augst.
The chefs, in addition to paying attention to the nutritional content of the food and food safety, are also making sure it’s accessible to all students, which means accommodating for allergies and dietary preferences.
“We really try to accommodate everybody, and we don’t want any kids to ever feel left out. So we do pay very close attention to trying to make sure that everybody’s eating, even if it’s not the same, it looks the same, so that nobody feels like they’re in the spotlight for their nutritional needs,” explained Hogan.
Of course, they don’t just serve delicious food that the kids will eat, but the nutrition in the food is also something they are focused on.
“We wanted everything to be as healthy and fresh as possible. We really focus on making sure the kids are getting their protein, making sure the kids are getting calcium and all the nutrients that they need. We really don’t add much salt to things. We try to do it more with herbs and spices. So really, I guess the real focus is just trying to make the meals as nutritionally balanced as possible,” explained Hogan.
They do all of this with a $4 window per student per meal, which can be quite a challenge, especially when they are competing with other school divisions for products, and recent inflation has not made their job easier.
It is in recognition of all of this hard work that Augst and Hogan earned the Nello Altomare Award for Excellence in School Nutrition.
For parents who don’t have their professional expertise in getting kids to eat a vegetable, their advice is to not be afraid to try something new and to shop local if you can.
“Don’t be afraid to push the envelope a little bit. We don’t give our kids enough credit that if they’re exposed to different products, they might just find there’s something that they absolutely love that they never would have tried before. I think that that would be my biggest advice, in small quantities, try to introduce your children to new ideas and different ethnic cuisines. They might just find that there’s things that they love and never even knew that it existed,” said Hogan.
“We’re going to be having upcoming farmers’ markets, and do as much as you can. With the produce and everything else that we have in the area, you can feed and sustain your kids on a very nutritious base level, and I think that’s something that the community and parents should look into,” said Augst.
The chefs also wanted to acknowledge that, though they won the award, they are supported by a team of people from LSSD administration, fellow staff members, and the organization that provides the commercial kitchen. Without that support, they wouldn’t be able to do what they do.
