Earlier this month we celebrated National School Lunch Week and serving Dutchess BOCES students healthy and varied meals is a top priority for the agency’s food services staff.
The Resilience Academy and Salt Point Center cafeterias serve about 250 lunches a day or about 1,250 a week and about 215 breakfasts per day or about 1,075 a week. School Lunch Director Holly Peters-Heady noted that the Child Nutrition Department, as well as the New York state and federal governments, provide her with guidelines to plan menus that are age and calorie-based. Each meal must include meat or a meat alternative, bread or bread alternative, fruit, vegetables and milk. Students having a healthy meal is critical for success in school.
“Healthy meals directly fuel student brain function, improve academic performance and support lifelong physical health,” Peters-Heady said. “Studies have shown that students who have access to free school meals have reduced food insecurity, higher nutritional equity, better attendance, more concentration and focus and higher test scores.”
Staff prepare meals throughout the school day with much of it beginning the day before. Food service staff is on campus between 5:30 and 6 a.m. to be ready to serve breakfast at 8:45 a.m. and begin lunch service at 10:20 a.m. Peters-Heady places orders with the agency’s vendors and distributors on Wednesdays in preparation for the following week with deliveries arriving on Mondays.
Peters-Heady noted that she and her staff enjoy hearing about meal ideas students and staff have, as long as they can fit into the guidelines they have to meet. She finds that RA and SPC students enjoy confetti pancakes, flavored waffles, popcorn chicken, broccoli with cheese sauce, parmesan pizza sticks and SPC Food Service Helper Shirley Caraway’s amazing rice. However, there is one surprising dish that the students cannot get enough of.
“They are looking for and enjoying salads for their lunch choice,” Peters-Heady said. “We are seeing and celebrating a small shift in many of our students this year.”
