For those who live north of Denver, Colorado, and are zoned for the Boulder Valley School District, the notion of great school lunches has been on the syllabus for years. Former director of the BVSD nutrition program, chef Ann Cooper, spent years cultivating a system that focused on fresh, scratch-cooked foods, and those standards have been goals for other districts across the country.
Before turning her attention full-time to the Chef Ann Foundation, an organization that has helped bring nutritious and tasty food to 3.2 million children in 11,000 schools, the “Renegade Lunch Lady,” as she is known, developed a program that has been featured in the New York Times, the National Restaurant Association, and many other national outlets.
"We have to educate the kids about healthy eating,” she said in an article about why kids hate school lunches. “If a kid wasn’t reading at grade level we would work harder to get them to read at grade level, but with food we’ve somehow abdicated that part of their education.”
And that’s one of the differentiating factors between BVSD’s school nutrition program and many others. They spend time and resources to help educate students on the importance of eating, and its joys. Historically, BVSD has hosted food fairs and even a Top Chef-style cooking contest where teams from local schools compete. The winning dish is then placed on the menu for the next school year.
Another important aspect of a successful school nutrition program is ensuring food gets in the hands of the students who need it the most. Though funding is often a fluid consideration depending on regulations and legislation, chef Ann believes we can still help get free lunches in the hands of economically challenged kids.
“If we want to see changes happen, they are going to come out of public-private partnerships or foundations and N.G.O.s,” she said. “People need to take matters into their own hands.”
Elevation Foodservice Reps supports free and healthy lunches in our schools.
Our president, Rich O’Brien, believes that nutritious foods should be available to all students in every district. As a result, Elevation Reps has partnered with some of the very organizations and foundations to which Chef Ann refers. We’re proud to work with so many amazing nutrition directors, including Stephen Menyhart, who is continuing the same efforts pioneered by chef Ann Cooper in the Boulder Valley School District.
Thank you to all those who are doing so much great work to make sure our kids are well-fed and prepared for days of active learning, week after week, month after month, and year after year. Together, we’re doing all we can to make the grade.
