Making schools fruity

I received a phone call Tuesday afternoon about my story on the produce bar at Ada Givens Elementary School. A mother called me to say thank you for the article. “There was only one problem,” she told me – there was no phone number to call to get the bar set up at her child’s school.

That, I decided, was a problem I could solve, even though it probably wasn’t the way this mother intended.

What Merced City School District Nutrition Services Director Terri Soares started at Givens is not some statewide salad bar program just making its way to Merced – she came up with the notion herself. Harvest of the Month is a national program Terri has implemented at Givens, but the produce bar is something extra Terri created after seeing different versions of it at other schools in the area.

But Terri would agree the produce bar isn’t rocket science. The fruits and veggies being served at the bar are all products available through the food supply company the district uses, so it doesn’t cost the district a whole lot more money. There was some training that had to be done and some serving items that had to be purchased, but other than that, Terri said it was an easy, low-cost addition to the Givens cafeteria.

In other words, any school could do it.

I told the mother that if she wanted, she could call Terri at the Merced City School District office. But the best way to get a program like this started at a school outside of the Merced City School District, I told the mother, was to go to a school board meeting and recommend it to the members of the board.

I hope the mother takes my suggestion to heart. After all, adding all those fresh foods to her daughter’s - as well as her classmates’ - diets will do their hearts a lot of good.