Carolina “Caro” Neri wants to see tomatoes, lettuce, whole apples and other products freshly plucked from local farms be delivered to St. Vrain Valley School cafeterias so local students could fill their bellies with fresh, unprocessed food.
She and other parents of ELPASO VOZ — a group of Latinx leaders — are lobbying school leaders to see their vision of a farm-to-table process come true for the Longmont-area district. “It’s so important to have good food for our children, so they can learn and be healthy,” Neri said last week.
The parents’ group decided to get involved in improving school cafeteria food after seeing their kids come home from school hungry and complaining about the fare their schools offered, Neri said. The parents then studied what goes into the mostly processed food being served.
“We noticed the food was all processed and the list of ingredients is so huge, ” Neri said. Besides chemicals, the food is often laden with salt and lots of sugar, she said.
She knows the district leans on processed foods because they are easy and cheaper to buy in bulk. “But there has to be a better way to do things,” she said. “And we want to work with the district to make changes, even bit by bit.”
Neri wants St. Vrain to emulate the fresh food efforts going on in the Boulder Valley School District. BVSD’s Culinary Center, for instance, provides larger freezers, coolers and dry storage to increase the amount of food the district can buy in bulk to reduce costs.
The district can then spend more in buying food from local farmers and producers, Neri said.
ELPASO VOZ is lobbying the district to gradually replace processed and canned foods with fresh and higher quality foods in 2022 and to quit serving chocolate milk because it contains too much sugar.
The group also wants the district to hire a professional chef to serve on the district’s Nutrition Services staff and that menus prepared in the district do not contain preservatives, artificial colors or dyes, additives or flavorings, high fructose corn syrup and trans fats.
The district should also increase the consumption of fresh vegetables, fruits, and meats produced and raised in Longmont and surrounding farms, Neri said.
“I know the local farmers are interested in this effort,” she said. “They can be used to help us reach these goals.”
At the Dec. 8 St. Vrain Valley School Board meeting, Superintendent Don Haddad told board members that the district has a strong focus on nutrition and has received many recognitions such as the USDA’s Once in a Melon Award for administering an “exemplary farm to school program”
All of the district’s 1.59 million meals that the Nutrition Services team has served so far this school year meet or exceed the standards set by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Haddad told the board. Local produce, including organic produce from Colorado's Western Slope, is incorporated whenever available, Haddad said.
The district’s nutrition program also:
- Provides over 2,000 snacks daily on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for the AAA after-school program.
- Offers special meal modifications daily for 253 students. The district currently has over 2,000 special meal diet needs including religion preferences, allergies and special meal modifications.
- Received a $11,700 grant from the Colorado Department of Education to continue partnerships with the district’s Future Farmers and schools in providing students with raised local meats and local food in the garden to school cafeterias.
- Had a partnership with “Cooking Matters” providing online cooking classes for parents and students for six weeks. All district students and families K-5 were able to participate.
- Provided support and funding dollars from School Wellness grant to Niwot High, Main Street, Hygiene Elementary, Sunset and Coal Ridge middle schools for outdoor classroom projects.
