Santa Cruz City Schools may serve Organic lunch meals to students

(Borganic.org) Santa Cruz City Schools is aiming to banish greasy pizza and soggy chicken nuggets from school cafeterias as part of an initiative to offer more healthy options during school lunch.

Santa Cruz City Schools Assistant Superintendent Richard Moss said he will recommend on Wednesday that Oakland-based Revolution Foods to provide fresh, organic food for five area schools. The company would serve students fresh, organic meals.

"My only caveat is that it remains healthy," said Michele Card, a kindergarten teacher at Gault Elementary, one of the schools that Revolution would serve. "If we're going to use our energies and time then we want something that is healthy and good."

The decision still has to go before the school board for approval on Wednesday. The pilot program would begin service in the fall, school officials said.

Moss projects that under the pilot program, school breakfasts will cost $1.76, while students will be able to purchase lunch for $2.93.

School officials hope that the program will emerge budget neutral.

"Part of the key is that the parents have to like the food," Moss said, adding that most students bring a lunch from home. If more students bought lunch at school, Moss suggests that schools could even begin to generate revenue.

Revolution officials held a taste test at Gault Elementary this week for school officials, parents and members of the Santa Cruz Wellness Committee, a group of educators,

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parents and health officials appointed to delineate the district's wellness policy, where the company unveiled a number of breakfast and lunch items, including organic meals like spaghetti and chicken noodle soup.

The Wellness Committee has worked to banish the processed foods that have become ubiquitous in school cafeterias.

"As the budget has gotten worse and worse over the past 15 years, the quality of the food has fallen," said Cynthia Hawthorne, a school board member who serves on the district's Wellness Committee.

Revolution co founder Kristin Richmond said that every school meal is prepared fresh daily and comes with a piece of fresh fruit and hormone-free milk. Furthermore, none of their foods contain high-fructose corn syrup or trans fat, she said. The organic foods vendor serves more than 5,000 meals a day in 40 Bay Area schools, according to a report in Business Week, with plans to expand nationwide.

Molly Parks, the principal of Gault Elementary, said she hopes the program will also help teach children healthy eating habits.

A recent study by Strategic Assessment of the Child Care Environment Advisory Group, which advises state agencies on education and health issues, found that one-third of the state's low-income students are overweight or obese.

"Child care settings are ideal environments for promoting children's healthy eating habits and physical activity, because they often spend eight to 10 hours a day in these settings and depend on caregivers to provide them adequate nutrition," California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Kim Belshé said in a statement.

The schools participating in the program this fall are Gault, Bay View, West Lake, DeLaveaga elementary schools and Branciforte Middle school. Gault and Branciforte will also launch a universal breakfast program, providing free lunch for all students.

While nearly 75 percent of the students at Gault are eligible for free or reduced lunch, only 24 percent of those participate in the program. Parks said many Gault students don't eat lunch because of the quality of the food.

"The kids have been on this bandwagon for a while," she said.

If You Go

Santa Cruz Board of Education

WHAT: Board meeting to approve vendor contract with Revolution Foods to provide healthy food service for several local schools

WHEN: 6:30 p.m. Wednesday

WHERE: District Office Room 312, 405 Old San Jose Road

By Libor Jany - Sentinel Correspondent

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