The Healthy School Lunch Committee is a group of parents and community members who are committed to creating a successful school lunch program that offers tasty and nutritious food to all children within the Palo Alto Unified School District.
This effort was started several years ago by individuals interested in improving child health and welfare. Among these individuals were Susan Stansbury, from The Foundation for Global Community and Jesse Cool, a local restaurateur, who spent many hours meeting with school board and city council members to get sustainably grown produce and organic food into the system. Penny Gertridge, a district parent, looked at ways to change the overall quality of the food. When our group formed one and a half years ago we realized we all had the same vision in mind: better food for our children. "Better food" means many things to many people.
We spent last year looking at other school districts in California and around the country, and came to the conclusion that we can provide more nutritious, fresher and better tasting food for our children. A few school districts have successfully developed school lunch programs that serve healthy and fresh foods, affordable and accessible to all school children. Many schools have also developed school food policies that have helped shape their school lunch programs.
After having gathered all of these data, we were ready to draft a document that spelled out school district policy on nutrition.This draft health & wellness policy was presented to the school board last year and after much discusssion, has been revised by district staff to focus solely on nutrition. The new nutrition policy was passed on August 24, 2004.
If you would like to be involved in our activities, please contact any of the committee members listed below.
September 2, 2004
