Posted by Casey DiCocco, Presidential Management Fellow, National Cancer Institute on November 10, 2014
The City of Fontana is a Let’s Move! City of over 205,000 people in beautiful southern California, and has made the health of its residents a key priority. Fontana Mayor Acquanetta Warren signed the city up for the Let’s Move! Cities, Towns, and Counties (LMCTC) initiative in 2012, demonstrating Fontana’s continued commitment to building a healthy, sustainable community. Fontana was the first city in the State of California to earn gold medals in all five of LMCTC’s goal areas.Through creative partnerships and community initiatives, Fontana exemplifies how LMCTC sites are working to keep kids healthy.
Posted by Kirby Bumpus, Associate Director for Policy, Let’s Move! on November 7, 2014
Recently, President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition members, Alonzo Mourning, Allyson Felix and Dominique Dawes took over the Navy Mess window, serving up healthy lunches and snacks to White House staff.
Posted by Kirby Bumpus, Associate Director for Policy, Let's Move! on November 5, 2014
Fuel Up to Play 60 (FUTP 60) recently challenged their students to explain, through video, why they enjoy their school meals. FUTP 60 Student Ambassadors from across the country answered the challenge and stepped up with some fun and creative videos that offer a glimpse into their perspective on the importance of eating healthy balanced meals!
Posted by Pat Casey, Medical Director of Growth & Development Clinic, Arkansas Children's Hospital on November 3, 2014
It's impossible to separate children's health and their nourishment. Kids who are healthy and happy aren't hungry. As a pediatrician who has spent 30 years focusing on children's development, I'm convinced of this.
I became even more convinced in 2008 when the recession began to significantly affect the patients at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock. Data from our emergency room backed this up. For 15 years I’ve been surveying just how much food insecurity impacts families who come to our ER. This has been a research project with Children’s Health Watch, a group that collects data aimed at improving kids’ health.
Posted by Vanessa Zajfen, USDA FNS Farm to School Regional Lead on October 31, 2014
Serving garden grown foods just got a lot easier at Greenview Upper Elementary in Lyndhurst, Ohio. Outfitted with new salad spinners and eager to serve even more local foods, staff at Greenview Upper Elementary are now ready for the Green Team’s garden harvest! The Green Team is a student group that manages Greenview’s garden and recycling program. Last year, they grew so much lettuce they were able to donate more than half of their harvest to an area church for use in its free meal program.
This year, they were excited to end their summer season with one of their most exciting harvests yet – the Fall White House Kitchen Garden Harvest!
Posted by Kelly Miterko, Deputy Associate Director, Let's Move! on October 30, 2014
Ed. Note: This is a cross post from the blog of whitehouse.gov. You can find the original post here. Yesterday, Executive Director of Let’s Move! and White House Senior Advisor for Nutrition Policy Sam Kass joined DC Public Schools’ student Maurice Morris, and thousands of classrooms via livestream from around the country for a special inside look into the White House kitchen.
Posted by Kacie O’Brien, USDA FNS Farm to School Regional Lead on October 30, 2014
“My carrot is burnt!” exclaimed a Willow Cove Elementary student in February, when they harvested carrots from the school garden for the first time. The student had never seen a purple carrot before and that day, the whole class enjoyed sample tastes of orange, white, and purple carrots. Carrots are just one of the many crops students have harvested from the Willow Cove garden, and they have a motivated teacher and their Nutrition Services department to thank for the experience.
Posted by Kelly Miterko, Deputy Associate Director, Let's Move! on October 24, 2014
Earlier this month, President Obama welcomed Sporting Kansas City, the 2013 Major League Soccer champions, to the White House. During their visit, Sporting KC held a soccer clinic on the South Lawn with DC SCORES youth. The DC SCORES program works with low-income youth to develop after school teams that cultivate a love for self-expression, physical fitness and community through involvement in poetry, soccer, and service-learning year-round. Active in 47 schools, DC SCORES reaches 1,500 youth across Washington, DC.
Posted by Kacie O’Brien, USDA FNS Farm to School Regional Lead on October 23, 2014
Earth oven pizza with local toppings made by students? Pass me a slice!
The Home Economics class at the STAR School has made sure there have been plenty of slices to go around and lots of local fare with help from a local farm and school administration and staff. Located near the Southwest corner of the Navajo Nation, the STAR School has experienced success in bringing healthy, local products into the school cafeteria and growing their own in a school garden. And to make sure the lessons it learns are transferred to others, the STAR School is using a USDA Farm to School Planning Grant to develop a road map for buying from local farms and developing school gardens for the 224 other schools located on the Navajo Nation. It is this effort and vision that led the STAR School to be invited to participate in this year’s Fall White House Kitchen Garden Harvest!
Posted by Kelly Miterko, Associate Deputy Director, Let's Move! on October 18, 2014
This weekend, the White House is inviting visitors to tour its gardens and grounds on October 18th and 19th. Visitors will be able to enjoy views of the Jacqueline Kennedy Garden, the Rose Garden, and of course our favorite, the White House Kitchen Garden. Earlier this week, the First Lady alongside a number of students, harvested carrots, sweet potatoes, figs, tomatoes, pumpkins and other vegetables from the White House Kitchen Garden during the Fall White House Kitchen Garden Harvest.
Posted by Becca Story, Nutrition Specialist for New England Dairy & Food Council on October 17, 2014
More than 200 New Hampshire schools have something new to be proud of. They have started the journey to improve the health and well-being of their student body by accepting the New Hampshire School Breakfast Challenge.
In October 2013, the NH School Breakfast Challenge partners, New Hampshire Kids Count, School Nutrition Association of New Hampshire, New England Dairy & Food Council and the NH Department of Education, challenged NH schools to increase their breakfast program participation by 25 percent over two years.
Posted by Wendy Henry-Moraskie, USDA Food and Nutrition Service on October 16, 2014
Whitefish Public Schools Food Service Director Jay Stagg started transitioning to more scratch cooking and using fewer processed foods when he was hired 5 years ago. So, when the Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act (HHFKA) rules were implemented, it might have seemed as though they were just catching up with the improvements he had initiated.
Posted by Dr. Janey Thornton, Deputy Under Secretary, USDA Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services on October 16, 2014
Ed. Note: This is a cross post from the blog of usda.gov. You can find the original post here.
On Friday, President Obama recognized October 12-18 as National School Lunch Week with an official proclamation. The message thanks hardworking school food service professionals, the tireless staff who demonstrate a daily commitment to providing schoolchildren with proper nutrition to enrich their lives in the classroom and beyond.
Posted by Kelly Miterko, Deputy Associate Director, Let's Move! on October 15, 2014
As part of the White House Kitchen Garden Fall Harvest, the First Lady participated in her first-ever Vine and Twitter Q&A to answer questions about Let’s Move!. During the chat, Mrs. Obama talked about tips for eating healthy and being active, the White House bees, her favorite fall vegetable, and a turnip that you don’t want to miss!
Posted by Nancy R. Mears, Supervisor of School Nutrition, Delaware on October 15, 2014
Farm to School (F2S) means different things to different people depending on where you live in the country. In Delaware, utilizing F2S to source local produce allows Laurel School District to meet the fruit and vegetable requirements of the new meal pattern outlined by federal guidelines for school meals. With a little creativity, we found these guidelines can be met with this valuable resource.
