Success Stories - Teachers & Schools
Video: First Lady Introduces Let’s Move! Child Care
You may have seen the blog post on Let’s Move! yesterday announcing Let’s Move! Child Care, a new effort to work with child and day care providers to help our youngest children get off to a healthy start. Using a checklist and web tools developed in a public-private partnership between the HHS, Nemours, and other partners child and day care providers will emphasize positive choices like increased physical activity, reduced screen time, and eating fruits and vegetables. The Department of Defense, General Services Administration, and the nation’s second largest childcare provider, Bright Horizons, have already committed to implementing this checklist, which will make a difference in the lives of over 280,000 children.
Secretary Vilsack Highlights Summer Food Service Program Week at No Kid Hungry Launch in Virginia
National Summer Food Service Program Week – Day 2!
Today marks day two in the first ever National Summer Food Service Program Week, a weeklong awareness campaign to promote USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and other programs nationwide to feed low income kids.
Lots of things are happening around the country this week to help feed more hungry children this summer. For example today is National Hunger Awareness Day – as designated by the U.S. Senate in a bipartisan resolution. This is very fitting, given that at least 17 million children in the United States face a higher risk of hunger in the summer. Also today Agriculture Secretary Vilsack joined Jeff Bridges, Share Our Strength founder Bill Shore, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell and others to launch Virginia’s No Kid Hungry Campaign at Barcroft Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia.
Cooking Up Change Visits the Nation’s Capital
What does school lunch look like when students are in charge? As high school culinary students recently reminded me, a student-designed lunch is fresh, healthy and full of flavor.
For the past year, I have served with Christie Vilsack as National Honorary Co-Chair of Cooking up Change, a competition presented by Healthy Schools Campaign that challenges aspiring chefs studying culinary arts in our nation’s high schools to create a school lunch that meets high nutrition standards, draws from ingredients commonly available to food service, and can be easily prepared in a school kitchen.
Big Day in the Big D: 154 Schools Receive HealthierUS School Challenge Awards
May 25 was a fabulous day in Dallas, as I presented 154 HealthierUS School Challenge awards to schools of the Dallas Independent School District – the greatest number to a single school district thus far. 78 schools received gold awards and another 76 earned bronze level awards. And, Texas leads the nation with 228 out of 1155 schools in the 42 states that have earned awards.
Bellingham Team Scores Big with Double Winners
Students at Bellingham (MA) Public Schools found the key to attracting some top individuals to their school for lunch: they asked a state senator, state representative, a food industry executive, the state Child Nutrition director and me to judge the school’s entries in the national Recipes for Healthy Kids competition. The school had much to be proud of because their terrific team created not one, but two semi-finalist recipes: “Tasty Tots” and “Mediterranean Quinoa Salad.”
Connecticut Students Say, “Si, Si” to Fiesta Wrap on the Menu
It’s only natural that when the team from Charter Oak International Academy came up with their entry in the Recipes for Healthy Kids competition it would have true international flavor. The West Hartford, CT school is a magnet school with a global focus, including Spanish language instruction. Their “Fiesta Wrap” stars quinoa and black beans accompanied by vegetables, lime juice, spices and reduced fat cheddar cheese with optional toppings such as fresh tomatoes, corn salsa or fiesta sauce.
New Mexico School Puts a Dash of Southwest in Recipe Competition
With a name like “Lentils of the Southwest aka Sweeney Cougar Power Lentils,” who says a healthy elementary school lunch can’t be exciting? On Wednesday, May 18th, students at Sweeney Elementary School in Santa Fe, N.M., served judges a spicy and delicious side-dish in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition.
A Colorful Celebration of Confetti Soup
Historical Charleston, S.C., blends the traditional Southern American, English, French, and West African elements into a celebration of its colorful and rich culture. Burke Middle & High School in Charleston celebrated this mix of colorful culture with its semi-finalist recipe, Confetti Soup, making a history all its own through nutrition. The rich wintery soup made with black-eyed pea dots, mixed together with savory smoked ham and dashes of greens, was the center piece at a judging event in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition, held at the school on May 25.
Benvenuti a Ashville! Ira B. Jones Elementary Tempts Judges with Taste of Tuscany
Located in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Asheville, N.C., is known for its rich heritage, arts, and fine dining. Recently, students from Ira B. Jones Elementary School, located in Asheville, shared a taste of another well-known region of fine dining – Tuscany – as the school’s recipe team prepared their semi-finalist recipe of Tuscan Smoked Turkey and Bean Soup for the judges in the First Lady’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition.
Honoring the Past With a Recipe that Looks to a Healthy Future
Every now and then we come across a great story of people making change in their communities and so it was on the next stop in the Recipes for Healthy Kids competition. Tribal communities are focusing a lot of attention on ending the epidemic of childhood obesity in Indian Country and attention and credit is due to Monument Valley High School in Kayenta, Arizona. Located on the Navajo Nation, they are the only school district in Indian Country to make it to the semi-finals of First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition.
