Homer Alaska - Schools

As the saying goes, "give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime." Villagers from the Cook Inlet community of Nanwalek have taken that adage to heart.

A collaborative effort between village youth and adults, the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, Smokey Bay Air and an Alaska seafood processor have secured USDA-approved salmon to be used in Nanwalek School's meal program.

"The kids mentioned it would be nice to eat our own salmon in school," said Emilie Swenning, supervisor of the Nanwalek IRA Council's Summer Youth Program. "This wouldn't have happened if the kids hadn't said that and the fishermen didn't help with all their catch."

Throughout the summer, the youngsters worked with adults to catch, clean, fillet and flash-freeze salmon. Smokey Bay Air flew the 465 pounds of salmon out of the village and then it was shipped to Copper River Seafoods, Swenning said.

Once processed, the salmon was returned to Nanwalek to be divided between the village's Head Start program, community elders and the school.

"You'd think it would be easy, but it's not. It's taken us two years to get to this point," Tim Greene, fisherman and father of a Nanwalek high school freshman, said of getting locally caught salmon into the school meal program. "Emilie Swenning would be the hero. She pretty much was the coordinator. That was the hardest part. Catching (the fish) and getting them to shore was fun and easy compared to the rest of it."

Scott Handley, principal of Nanwalek School, said the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District's final stamp of approval has yet to be obtained before the salmon can be served to students, but "everything has been caught, processed and approved by the FDA."

"We're really close to getting this implemented and hope to replace nachos and cheese with fish and rice," said Handley. "It's a win-win situation for us. We get fresh, nutritional fish we can use in our lunches. It's culturally appropriate and goes right along with the concept of subsistence and providing for your own, as well as meeting federal guidelines for the federal lunch program."

Photo provided The elders' freezer in Nanwalek is full thanks to harvesting efforts by the village's Summer Youth Program.

Keith Seville, cook manager for the school, said as soon as he gets the go-ahead from Dean Hamburg of the KPBSD student nutrition services program, Seville would begin rotating the salmon into the menu.

"The only thing is to determine serving sizes," Seville said.

Greene said youth involvement in harvesting the salmon was a key to the program's success.

"The students are the beneficiaries. They got to help from the beginning and, just like anything else, if you help get your food, it tastes better," said Greene.

Swenning saw the same value.

"I'm very proud of the kids. All the work they've done, they've put back onto their plates," said Swenning. "And not just their plates, but the whole school's."

Catching salmon wasn't the only activity of the village summer youth program. The youngsters grew a potato garden, from which they harvested 117 pounds of potatoes, some for use in the school's culinary arts program and some for village elders.

"The kids also did beautification work in the community, berry picking for the elders' freezer, learned to make seal oil and put away seal, picked bidarkis (chitons) and put halibut and salmon heads in the freezer," said Swenning. "They also were able to do a little job shadowing at the council office, helped with the community library, worked on the Vincent Kvasnikoff Memorial Park and helped with community celebrations."

The multi-faceted program depended on another segment of the community.

"The neat thing is that the elders are willing to teach them," Swenning said of passing knowledge from one generation to another. "Every one of our elders had something to offer these kids."

McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.