The high school cafeteria in America often gets a bum rap. Maybe being forced to take a vegetable rubbed you the wrong way. Perhaps the public school sloppy joe could never compete with Mom’s. Or perhaps you were on the receiving end of the wrath of a frustrated cafeteria worker.

Thanks to a collaboration between local school districts and Wellsboro’s Hillstone Farms, some local students’ memories of the cafeteria will likely be a lot tastier in the years to come.

If you live in or around Wellsboro, you’ve certainly heard of Hillstone Farms (see our June 2016 and June 2022 issues), and you’ve probably enjoyed the beef produced there in one of the myriad local restaurants that serve it. Truly, Hillstone’s Webster family has connections in the Wellsboro community and its school district that run deep.

I met up with Todd and Jessica Webster, fittingly, at the beef show at the Tioga County Fair in August. Todd Webster is an easygoing, sharp-witted everyman who graduated from Wellsboro in the late ’90s. He grew up on the land he now farms, and, after earning an animal science degree at Penn State, he moved to Vermont and gained some experience with meat inspection. He eventually returned to work with his dad, Tim, on their sprawling family beef farm outside of town. Today Todd and his brother, Garrett, who joined the team after graduating from Penn State with his own ag degree, run the farm. Sadly, Tim died very unexpectedly in 2022 as the result of a farm-related accident.

Todd’s wife, Jessica, herself a Wellsboro alum, manages the downtown face of Hillstone Farms in their Main Street storefront. There, they sell homemade baked goods like scones and Jessica’s famous sourdough bread, locally sourced products like Painterland Sisters yogurt and Innerstoic ciders, and of course, their beef in a number of cuts. Their kids are even in on the business, selling their own handcrafted products like homemade granola. The business continually expands its offerings, most recently by selling skincare products made with the beef tallow from their animals. After teaching in Mansfield for a few years, Jessica returned to her local roots in 2017 to teach biology and earth and space science at Wellsboro Area High School.

This connection to their home school district goes back a generation, too, as Todd’s mom, Karen, was also a teacher in the Wellsboro Area School District for more than thirty years. She even taught this author the rules of football and a unit on table manners in ninth grade. All this is to say the Webster family’s impact on the WASD community is a big one.

So, when Katrina Doud, director of food and nutrition in the district and no stranger to sourcing locally when she can, learned of a grant program through the PA Beef Council, she knew just whom to call. She reached out to Hillstone Farms, and the Webster family was interested. They applied to be suppliers through the program.

The PA Beef Council’s PA Beef to PA Schools program works to connect schools and their food service programs to local beef producers. The idea is designed to increase the beef in school lunches while supporting local farms and decreasing food insecurity for the people in our communities.

Started by the PA Beef Council, additional funding for the program comes from the state’s Department of Agriculture and other partners, including some larger farm donors. According to Todd, one dollar for every animal shown at places like our own county fair also goes into this pool of funding. The beef Hillstone Farms provides to local school districts is paid for in half by these PA Beef Council funds, and half is paid by the school district.

Todd explains that there are a few key requirements to be a supplier. The beef has to be Pennsylvania beef, it has to be processed by an inspected USDA facility, and the supplier has to be able to deliver the beef to the school. “That was easy, because Jessica works there,” says Todd. Last year, Hillstone provided Wellsboro with fifty pounds of beef each month.

During the 2024-2025 school year statewide, this program served 120 school districts in forty-eight counties on a monthly basis. Twenty-six farms were able to serve their beef to a total of more than 220,000 students statewide. In addition, the program hosts PA Beef Days, which increases the number of school districts served over the course of the school year to 300 during those special events when local beef is served for lunch.

As a wrestling coach for the district, Todd was also able to witness firsthand the impact their product had. He recalls that on the day the cafeteria served Hillstone smashburgers—a cafeteria sellout—he rode the bus to a wrestling match with a group of athletes who’d enjoyed the treat that day. Students raved so much, Todd joked he was worried they might not make weight for the competition.

The Hillstone Farms family hopes to be able to participate in the program again this year, but as of press time, the state budget had not yet been passed, so it’s not a sure thing that the money will be there. Hillstone has also recently provided some beef to Galeton and Southern Tioga school districts through the same program.

The Websters are humble about their part in connecting their product to the district. Jessica points out they are invested in the Wellsboro Area School District—not just because they attended or have kids there, but for their nieces and nephews, and friends’ kids, too. Todd says he would love to see more school districts participate, and that they all have local beef producers who could get involved. It’s not just about business to them. At the end of the school day, it’s about what’s best for kids. Says Jessica, “It’s getting good food back into the schools.”