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 been another amazing year here at Beyond Breakfast! Sharing the positive impact breakfast-in-the-classroom is having on students all over the country is our favorite part of the day, and our monthly “In the News” roundup helps remind us how important that morning meal can be.
As we look ahead to 2016, our hope is that more students have access to the nutrition they need—at both breakfast and lunch. If starting a breakfast-in-the-classroom program has been on your “to-do” list, make 2016 your year! And don’t forget to check in at Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom for tools and information to help you get started; feel free to drop us a line through the Contact Us form as well, and we will help in any way we can. In case you missed it, here are some of our top PBIC stories from December 2015:
- Partners Chat: Tim Ely, Food Service Director, Saddle Mountain USD #90, AZ: We sat down to chat with director Tim Ely to hear about the great things breakfast-in-the-classroom has done for students in Saddle Mountain, Arizona, including a calmer, more focused morning routine.
- Partners Chat: JoAnne Hammermaster, Health & Wellness Chair, Georgia PTA: We frequently talk to directors, teachers, and principals about breakfast-in-the-classroom, but in this blog we get the PTA perspective on the importance of BIC. Thanks to JoAnne Hammermaster for lending us her time and energy to explain how parents can become school breakfast champions, and PTAs can be integral in program support and implementation.
- School Breakfast New Year’s Eve Countdown: A little nostalgia can be a lot of fun! We reflected on the positive impact of breakfast-in-the-classroom with a mini-countdown of some of our favorite school breakfast videos. These are terrific tools to have at your disposal when a teacher or superintendent needs a strong visual to help them conceptualize the program.
The Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom also had a terrific month on social media. We’ve slowly but surely been growing our social media presence; many of you have joined our Facebook page this year, as well as following us on Twitter at @BreakfastClsrm. It’s exciting to stay in touch with all of you out there who are advocating for and sharing their #schoolbreakfast news – thanks for staying in touch!
Finally, we want to say thank you to everyone from the Walmart Foundation which generously funds our grants, to our partners—NEA Healthy Futures, FRAC, School Nutrition Foundation, and NAESP Foundation—for another wonderful cycle of funding breakfast-in-the-classroom. We’ll have a summary to share with you in next month’s In the News round-up—stay tuned!