Each month, our staff reads hundreds of media reports on the subject of school nutrition. We curate our favorites in a monthly blog post we call, “In the News.” Highlighting positive stories about the great things going on in school cafeterias helps us in many ways: providing inspiration, connecting school nutrition professionals from across the country, and promoting those programs and individuals who are taking the extra step to make their school nutrition program the very best it can be.
It’s June, which means the school year is wrapping up, but that doesn’t mean we’ve run out of school nutrition headlines! In fact, it’s just the opposite—we’re reading story after story on summer meals, as school districts prepare to serve breakfast and lunch over the summer break Don’t miss FRAC’s recent update: Nearly 1 in 6 Low-Income Children Receive Summer Meals. Summer feeding is one of the hottest topics hitting our inbox right now—it’s also Summer Meals Awareness Week!–and we look forward to learning more about your summer breakfast and lunch programs.
Another hot topic last month was SNA’s upcoming Annual National Conference in Salt Lake City! We can’t wait to visit beautiful Utah, and to spend the week learning and working with our school nutrition colleagues. Check back with us later this week to read our latest interview with School Nutrition Foundation’s Director of Development Janet Hedrick—it’s all about ANC 2015, and we can’t wait to share it with you! Will you be there? Don’t forget to connect with SNF and Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom on Facebook and Twitter, too!
As always, we collected some amazing breakfast-in-the-classroom headlines to share with you. We love this interview with Tom Tanner, director of food services for Rochester schools in New Hampshire; listen as Tanner makes the case for breakfast-in-the-classroom during an appearance on New Hampshire Public Radio. In Montana, breakfast-in-the-classroom is also gaining in popularity. Montana Governor Steve Bullock calls feeding hungry kids “the most solvable issue any of us face,” and he has actively pursued the program’s expansion statewide. The intersection of hunger, breakfast, and education was recently measured at the international level by Foodbank NSW/ACT; their report showed that two-thirds of teachers surveyed report students coming to school hungry.
Finally, there is still time to apply for Fuel Up to Play 60 funds before the June deadline. Get your applications in by Tuesday, June 16 to win up to $4000 in funds from Fuel Up to Play 60 to help kick off the 2015-16 school year in good health!
What are some of your favorite school nutrition trends and headlines from May 2015? Share them with us in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!