BUCKFIELD — Middle school children were busy Thursday afternoon peeling apples and potatoes, chopping onions and tomatoes and preparing locally-grown foods for the second annual Community Harvest Supper on Friday. The supper is set from 5 to 7 p.m. at Buckfield Junior-Senior High School.

“The whole middle school was involved,” said one of the leaders of the effort, English teacher Gretchen Kimball.

Culinary arts classes were baking turnovers, apples and pumpkin breads. Apples were donated by Greenwood Orchards.

The high school soccer team was preparing to convert the gymnasium into a giant dining hall. The art classes painted ornate and whimsical pumpkins that will be auctioned at the supper.

Students in the after-school program were making chili, baked beans, stews and other foods, with the majority of ingredients either grown in the school garden or donated by local farmers.

The school garden, which was planted, weeded, harvested and cleaned up by middle school students, produced a lot of food this year. When there wasn’t quite enough of something to make a dish, such as dry beans for baked beans, they were purchased locally, Kimball said.

New this year is a pig roast, with the cooking to be done by local resident Bob Steele. Local farmer Lee Johnson, who raises pigs that were fed by the garden leftovers, donated money to buy a pig for roasting.

The children didn’t want to eat a pig they had been feeding all season, Kimball said.

Learning the value of eating local foods was a major goal of the garden and community supper. That lesson was learned well by many of the middle school students.

“Local foods taste better,” said seventh-grader Katherine Perry. “Would you rather give money to people in China or someone local? This helps our community.”

She also likes the idea of a community harvest supper.

“We’re helping people celebrate the last harvest of the garden. We finished what we did,” she said.

Sumner seventh-grader Britney Hart said she likes the idea of having a garden and fresh food.

“It’s better for people to have a garden. We want to start one next year. It’s healthier,” she said.

Kimball said the community supper raised more than $3,500 last year. A portion of the money from this year’s event will help pay medical bills for a Buckfield high school student who is hospitalized.

The rest will go back into the school’s garden fund.

Math teacher Annette Caldwell is also a leader of the community garden and supper.

The cost for the supper is $5 for adults, $1 for students, and free for students in grades seven to nine.

[email protected]