Expanding Summer Meals in San Diego

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Action for Healthy Kids’ (AFHK) Nancy Frank, M.P.H., AFHK State Coordinator, in California explains how one school nutritionist stepped up to provide healthy food for all students and kids in her community.

When Sally Spero arrived at San Diego’s Lemon Crest Elementary School as child nutrition director in the winter of 2012, she quickly realized that the summer meal program – which served children in the community as well as those attending the school’s various summer programs –  had only reached 60 kids the previous summer and offered foods that didn’t meet emerging nutrition standards. So she did something about it.

With the support of the district superintendent and the school board, Spero applied for and received a grant from Action for Healthy Kids, funded by Walmart, to buy salad bar equipment to use in the cafeteria, dubbed the “Summerside Café.” While she waited for its arrival, she borrowed used equipment, which allowed her to get the revamped program off the ground during the summer of 2012 and expand its reach to 150 kids. Then, she deployed her cafeteria monitors, Janis Clark and Cliff Benson, to spread a simple message to students: “Eat a rainbow.”

The salad bar was stocked with grape tomatoes, broccoli buds, celery, different types of beans, mango, cantaloupe and fresh whole strawberries, among other options, and on “Taco Bar Tuesdays” it offered an array of taco toppings. “The kids would actually take their plates to Janis and show her how many colors they had collected for their lunch!” Spero said.

The fledgling program managed to serve more than 6,000 healthy meals to children over a two-month period. Now that Spero has her new salad bar equipment, she hopes to serve 8,000 meals during the summer of 2013 to accommodate the 220 kids the program now reaches. To help her achieve her goal, she worked with a graphic designer to develop a logo and banners for the Summerside Café, which she has used to publicize the program in the community. She also worked with the California Dairy Council to identify curricula to train teachers on how to incorporate the “Eat a rainbow” concept and other nutritional messages into their summer classes.

Spero is grateful for all the support she has received from Action for Healthy Kids, the California Dairy Council, and her superintendent and school board.

“It’s not just about dollars and cents,” she said. “It’s about receiving encouragement and support to be creative and meet a critical need.”

To find out more from Action for Healthy Kids and what other schools are doing, visit their site here.