It Takes a Village to Transform School Lunches

West Contra Costa School District takes first step toward fresh, local food service

Nevertheless she persisted. Judi Shils refuses to see barriers in the way of her goal to help transform food service at California’s West Contra Costa Unified School District.

There are many barriers, of course, to bringing fresh, organic, locally grown food to students and teachers in a district that serves 30,000 meals a day at 55 schools to many students who live under the poverty line.

Thanks to a robust community partnership – a collaboration of farmers, chefs, school district officials, parents, teachers and businesses – the East Bay Area district took the first step to show what’s possible, serving made-from-scratch organic breakfasts and lunches to 1,200 students and teachers at two schools Jan. 30-Feb. 3.

The program, called The Conscious Kitchen and organized by Shils’ nonprofit group Turning Green, aims to shift the paradigm of school food service to a framework they call FLOSN: fresh, local, organic, seasonal, non-GMO food.

Shils began working last spring with parents, teachers and principles to create the “Taste of the Conscious Kitchen,” a weeklong demonstration of FLOSN meals at Peres Elementary School in Richmond and El Cerrito’s Madera Elementary.

The project involved 14 chefs cooking made-from-scratch FLOSN food (menus here), with all food sourced from local organic farmers, ranchers and purveyors, and meals exceeding the USDA National School Lunch Program nutritional guidelines.

While some have criticized “swoop-in-and-fix” efforts to change school food – for example, a recent Huffington Post story about the “Revenge of the Lunch Lady” who salvaged a made-for-TV food-fix flop in a West Virginia district – the Conscious Kitchen model is rooted in community partnerships built over the long term, and the belief that it takes a village to feed school children well.

The demonstration week indeed took a village: chefs donated time, servers volunteered, local farmers and purveyors donated much of the food, a crowd-funding campaign raised $5,000 and Patagonia, Clif Bar Family Foundation and Dr. Bronner’s Family Foundation (which also provides funds to my group US Right to Know) underwrote the rest.

“Food has a way of galvanizing communities,” Shils said. “All these stakeholders came together with the shared goal of health and wellness for our children.“