March was National Nutrition Month and we were positively inspired by the beautiful photos and stories shared by schools and districts across the country. We were particularly excited to see the exciting National School Breakfast Week celebrations held during the first week of the month. Between March 7-11, millions of students were able to “Wake Up! to School Breakfast” and we hope that someday, every student will have access to a nutritious school breakfast to start their day.
Today we wanted to share some of our favorite creative school breakfast promotions from National School Breakfast Week 2016. Thanks to all of the schools and districts who participated and shared on social media using the #NSBW16 and #schoolbreakfast hashtags—we had a blast!
Eat Right, Be Bright PJ Party
When we sat down at LAC 2016 with Cleta Long, she told us to keep our eye on her Eat Right, Be Bright social media accounts, promising great photos from her National School Breakfast Week celebration. Well, she delivered! Long shared photos of the reigning Miss Macon visiting Weaver Middle School to promote school breakfast, and Cleta herself made several television appearances to promote National School Breakfast Week and breakfast trends with the community. One of the cutest NSBW promotions in Bibb County was PJ Day, where all kids were invited to wear their jammies to school—adorable!
Virginia governor, first lady, promote Breakfast in the Classroom
Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe and his wife Dorothy are huge supporters of breakfast-in-the-classroom, and they spent National School Breakfast Week touring their state in support of school breakfast programs. In fact, the two made appearances throughout the month of March in support of nutrition programs that are helping children in Virginia bridge the hunger gap.
Invite your elected officials to visit your school to see school breakfast in action, or to raise the profile for your kick-off event. You can even get the kids involved and turn it into a lesson on civic engagement by having everyone write a letter to a local or state representative.
Encourage student chefs with a recipe contest
When we saw a recent article about Santa Cruz Valley Unified School District’s Future Chefs Challenge we were inspired! The contest encourages students to submit healthy breakfast recipes, and this year sixty-five future chefs entered recipes for consideration! Out of those 65, twelve were selected to compete in the finals. The winning recipe was for a Mexican huevo bagel, created by second-grader Marcelo Ibarra-Vallejo at Callabasas School. What an exciting and educational way to get kids involved in food and nutrition!
Celebrity sightings help raise breakfast’s profile
We were excited to see one of our Partners for Breakfast in the Classroom teammates pop up on Twitter this month! Etienne Melcher from Food Research & Action Center was pictured in a widely-shared Tweet, posing with New York Giants offensive guard Justin Pugh at a school breakfast celebration in New Jersey. Do you have a famous alumnus who could appear as part of a NSBW or school breakfast kick-off event?