School Lunch, opening salvo

This is going to be a frequent topic here, because, sadly, it needs to be. There are so many prismatic angles to discuss.

I live in a school district with an economically diverse population. There are many, many families that live or die by what's in the WSJ, with plenty of cash on hand for vacations in Fiji and conveyances in the BMW-Lexus-Mercedes-Porsche-Land Rover family. There are plenty of mothers and fathers  in these families who are able to, and choose to, be heavily involved in the PTO and volunteer frequently in many capacities.

There are also many families whose parent(s) work long service jobs and have little extra time or money to contribute to the school district. These families rely on the school to  provide the high-quality education — including nutritional education and good lunches — it is capable of. And except the lunches and some undermining PTO fundraisers, it does. The school district is consistently ranked #1 or #2 in the state.

If you have the stomach for it, head over to Holy Taco

to see what other delights are on school menus

Which brings me to lunch.
For 6 years I have watched:

• Kids spend 20 minutes eating lunch at their desks because there is no lunchroom. Really?! Yes.
  
  
• Lunch menus that week-in-week-out offer the likes of: Chicken Fryz and Waffle Sticks, with the option of "organic salad bar items." OK, they're doing a little better lately, but still! Look! These lunches with milk now cost $3.50.
  
  
• The "kitchen" relying on collated cold-room food and reheating, the cooking ranges no longer being used. No doubt these foods comply to the letter of the law with nutrition requirements, but isn't that a problem in and of itself? Where are the required/integrated vegetables? Why so much frying over grilling? Why do the children see no sign of cooking in preparation of their lunches? Honestly, the kitchen pretty much looks like a pared-down, non-customer-facing fast-food operation.
  
  
• The PTO organizing fundraising McTakeovers that undermine all the nutritional education the children receive in class. (I wrote a response to the PTO mailing list when they were asking for help, and not one person on the thread replies with so much as a word.)
  
  
• The PTO also sponsoring a Capri Sun Fundraiser:
  

ITS (sic) EASY, HERE IS HOW TO EARN MONEY FOR BLAKELY:

If you have a Capri Sun Pouch, there is a special garbage next to the garbage area after lunch. The container is labeled with Capri Sun Packaging. Just remove the straw and place your EMPTY pouch in the Capri Sun container. Then Blakely Elementary will earn 2¢ per pouch. 

This money can add up fast, so let’s get drinking Capri Sun for Blakely! (My emphasis added)

Caprisun (sic) does have organic and 100% juice varieties!

• My own children, who eat so well at home — and this DOES include treats and compromises sometimes — often preferring to eat the crappy school lunch over home lunch for a variety of reasons during different periods of time.

Screen grab of Sound Food's
wonderful local map

This is in a community where the Farmer's Market is a Saturday "must," thanks to plentiful, verdant farms within 2 to 20 miles. This is in a community where fresh local eggs can be picked up from "honor boxes" at the foot of many driveways. This is a community rife with organizations such as:

EduCulture Project at Suyematsu Farm (Where Akio Suyematsu still farms at 89 years old and has inspired, despite himself, a Friends of the Farms Annual Award in his name), Friends of the Farms, Sound Food, Port Madison Goat Farm and Creamery, Islandwood, Farm Kitchen, Tani Creek Farm, Laughing Crow Farm, Persephone Farm, Butler Greens, to name only a handful.

This is in an elementary school whose 60s-era building has a central courtyard perfect for a garden, but largely neglected and unused. And in a district where each of the schools has ample outdoor space for gardening.

I was very ired by this before the advent of Food Revolution, and I remain very ired. 

If Michelle Obama's excellent initiatives, Jamie Oliver's passionate TV-driven advocacy, and the abundance of parent time and resources unique to my district can't make things better here yet, how long do we have to wait for schools both rich and poor in resources to provide a tasty and nutritious lunch?

Some additional "why?"s that just occurred to me:

• Why can't the schools and local farms team up to have after-school farming partnerships? So many extracurricular activities have been cut due to funding, this one would require nothing more from the school than some alternate bus drop-off spots (assuming the parents can pick up their children after work, as they would from any aftercare program). The kids could weed and pick, clean, bunch, etc. vegetables in exchange for a percentage of the harvest going to the school. If the farms wanted to augment the program with cooking tips and experiences, etc., all the better.
  
  At a high school level, the kids who had been in the program could be the managers of the program, providing supervision, cooking classes, adding heirloom gardens with research and Farmer's Market sales opportunities, etc.
  
  In an era where college admission and scholarships are so competitive, wouldn't this really give these kids a meaningful edge alongside the lifelong connection to quality, natural food, where it comes from, and how to prepare it?
  

Photo from Sound Food's
wonderful local map

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