Poughkeepsie City School District’s Health and Wellness Committee back for the year
In a third grade classroom of 25 kids, take a closer look at two sitting right next to each other. As the teacher continues the lesson on long division, one child is attentively copying notes, while the other is staring out the window and fidgety. This lack of alertness and failure to learn stems from a bigger issue — pertaining to healthy diets.
According to the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, “kids who eat healthier and move more perform better in school.” Many studies have proven that nutrition is conducive to learning. While children who skip breakfast are more inclined to get distracted in school, those that live a healthy lifestyle benefit from nutritious boosts of energy encouraging them to learn better.
To help solve such a prominent issue, the United States Department of Agriculture created the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) back in 1946. After many years of development and ongoing changes, today it is a successful federally assisted meal program helping over 30 million children in the United States.
The program has been enforced in over 100,000 public and nonprofit private schools. Institutions that choose to participate in the NSLP receive federal aid to “provide nutritionally balanced, low-cost, or free lunches” to students in need. The meals within this program that are served at school must meet Federal requirements — including healthy options, like fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
Among those schools participating in the NSLP is the Poughkeepsie City School District. Serving healthy meals to any child within the district, Poughkeepsie students have been benefiting for many years now. However, Poughkeepsie is not only a part of the National School Lunch Program, but they also qualify for the Community Eligibility Program (CEP). As the USDA website displays, CEP is a meal service option commonly used by school districts that are located in economically-challenged areas. Schools that serve as members of this program are provided with meals “at no cost to all enrolled students without the burden of collecting household applications.” In other words, despite their economic status, immigration status, or age, all Poughkeepsie School City District students receive free meals while in school.
As part of the development and marketing for both the NSLP and CEP programs within the district, a member/ volunteer organization, known as the Health and Wellness Committee, joined together to enforce nutritional food and healthy eating to students in the Poughkeepsie City School District.
“We, the Poughkeepsie City School District Wellness Committee, are committed to establishing and maintaining a school environment that promotes health and well-being.” — With their mission statement in mind, the committee held its first meeting of the year this past Thursday, October 13th. Aiming to provide all schools in the district with nutritious meals and helping them lead a healthy lifestyle, members and volunteers met in the Poughkeepsie Middle School Library.
After school let out for the day, the Wellness Committee decided to gather its can-do attitude and positive energy into one room for an hour and 15 minutes to discuss current health and wellness issues, as well as updating each other on successful events held this past summer.
Director of the Food Service Department for Poughkeepsie City School District, David Dunn, was in attendance, alongside Cornell Cooperative Extension Regional Coordinator, Shayna McGeady Russo. Poughkeepsie faculty members and volunteers, including members from the Dutchess County Behavioral and Community Health, Poughkeepsie Farm Project, and Food Bank of the Hudson Valley were also represented.
As members of the Wellness Committee for the Poughkeepsie School District, they “develop communicate, implement, monitor, review, and, as necessary, recommend revisions to revise school nutrition, mental health, and physical activity policies.” Together they serve as a pool of resources, helping students and their families lead a healthier lifestyle.
One of their major projects at hand happens to be further advertisement and implementation of the free meals provided to students. Currently breakfast, lunch and dinner are being served to the schools within the district for no cost at all.
All five of the Poughkeepsie City Elementary schools serve free breakfast to students in the morning, four of which receive their first nutritious meal of the day in the comfort of their own classroom. While the other elementary school, as well as the Poughkeepsie Middle and High School all serve hot meals in the cafeteria for breakfast. For students that happen to miss this morning meal, schools have implemented vending machines for students as well. So long as students enter their pin code school ID number into the machine, a packaged breakfast of their choice is available to them. As Chef David, Director of Food Services later stated, “We want to start the day with fuel in the tank.”
Much like this first meal of the day, lunch is also served free of charge at every school in the Poughkeepsie City district. Serving a hot entree, along with some vegetables, fruit, and milk each lunch is cooked in house, providing students with healthy meal choices.
Fortunately, dinner is also a meal that is offered to the students of the Poughkeepsie City School District. Once school is let out at 2:55 PM, the Middle School and High School cafeteria preparing to serve their last hot meal of the day — dinner. Between the hours of 3:00 and 5:30 PM in the evening, students can walk in for another free meal. An offer than many of the elementary school kids do not know about because it is only available at the Middle and High School cafeteria, it is still open to everyone.
The task at hand for the Wellness Committee is to further promote this to the younger kids, letting them know that all are welcome, including their families. (For more information click here.) Usually there are about 80 to 100 students that come for lunch every day, however they would like to exceed that number to an influx of 120 to 150 students and families. The opportunity for any family to come and enjoy a hot meal for dinner, at an affordable price, helps not only the students but members of the community eat healthy and stay within their budget. As previously mentioned, these meals are free to students with the entry of their pin code school ID number — if parents and families are interested in joining for dinner they must pay a small entry fee of $3.85 for a hot meal.
As the committee meeting on Thursday evening progressed and time was running out, the energy in the room was quite the opposite. So many members and volunteers sitting around the library table were willing to collaborate and work around what they had to provide students with the healthiest alternatives. Spitting ideas back and forth, searching for potential resources and donors, all while encouraging plans to become reality.
The beauty of this program is simply that. It is available free of charge to all students within the school district and is priced affordably to parents and families that want to partake in the after school dinner. With the strenuous efforts of people involved, like the Health and Wellness Committee of the Poughkeepsie City School District, students are receiving nutritious meals and learning to live a healthier lifestyle — while their educational experience is being enhanced at the same time.
