I remember the lunches I used to eat in grade school: cardboard-consistency frozen pizza, neon-yellow macaroni and cheese, and soggy french fries. I don’t recall ever eating a vegetable in school from the ages of five to seventeen. With these options on the school-lunch menu, and with most parents too busy to pack healthier choices for their kids, it’s no wonder that the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that 19.6 percent of children (ages six to eleven) and 18.1 percent of adolescents (ages twelve to eighteen) are obese in this country. Now some schools are fighting back against these overwhelming statistics.
Alice Waters’ Edible Schoolyard
How do you get locally grown produce to inner-city schoolchildren? Turn schools into student-run farms! Edible Schoolyard (ESY) is a one-acre organic garden and kitchen classroom for students at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School in Berkeley, California. Run by the Chez Panisse Foundation, a nonprofit organization begun by chef and author Alice Waters, ESY began in 1995 in a vacant lot; students visited once a month. Now, all of the school’s one thousand students attend between twelve and thirty kitchen and garden sessions per year (depending on their grade level). In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina, ESY launched an affiliate program in New Orleans, Louisiana, and has since established a network of similar affiliate programs across the country.
Jamba Juice’s Fruity Concept
Some U.S. schools are taking advantage of a sweet new deal from California-based smoothie chain Jamba Juice. According to PR Newswire, Jamba has formed a partnership with the National PTA to support parents and teachers in creating school programs that encourage students to lead healthy lifestyles. The Jamba School Appreciation Program provides swipe cards for members of registered school communities to use with each purchase at participating Jamba Juice locations. Ten percent of proceeds from the purchase go to the local school PTA and two percent go to the National PTA.
Jamba also announced the start of its Jamba Juice School Lunch Program at the 2010 Summit on Health, Nutrition, and Obesity. This program allows schools to offer Jamba’s All Fruit smoothie line at a fixed discount for students.
