Serving millions of meals a year, St. Vrain Valley School District’s nutrition services program is proud to fuel student learning.
Director of Nutrition and Warehouse Services Shelly Allen explained to the school board on Wednesday that the program lives by three principles. Providing fuel for student achievement and learning with change are two.
“It’s not nutrition if we can’t get them to eat the food,” is the third principle, Allen said.
The program emphasizes serving a variety of nutritious foods that appeal to students and have been lauded by the state for its menus and food safety practices.
Along with serving lunches at all schools, 26 schools get breakfast “before the bell” and 14 get in-classroom breakfasts or “continental breakfast carts.” While only schools with at least 70% of students qualifying for free or reduced lunch must provide in classroom breakfasts, St. Vrain’s programs go beyond that.
“We provide breakfast in the classroom for any school that asks for breakfast in the classroom programs,” Allen said.
The number of lunches and breakfasts eaten at St. Vrain has nearly doubled since 2020. Demand for snacks has grown even more as the district expands those offerings.
The district complies with all U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines with their meals, offering foods with less than 30% fat, less than 10% saturated fat, no trans fat, less than 30% sugar by weight and all whole grains.
Additionally, students have access to unlimited fresh fruits and vegetables, many of which are locally sourced from Colorado. Allen said when procuring food, locally grown food is the district’s number one choice. Many options throughout the year come from farmers across the state.
There’s a push for hyperlocal foods with 15 functioning school gardens in St. Vrain. The district is growing its school gardening program thanks in part to a partnership with the St. Vrain chapter of the Future Farmers of America, with high school students helping younger grades get their school gardens running while learning about agriculture.
The school district recently received a grant that will support more student-grown agriculture for school cafeterias, with students even designing the recipes for the produce from their gardens.
Another part of the nutrition services program is reducing food waste. The district has recently expanded its food share table, which collects uneaten produce that otherwise would have been thrown away, which can then be used for snacks throughout the day.
The district works to help families bring these nutritious ideals home, too. Thanks to a partnership with Cooking Matters, St. Vrain offers six week cooking classes for all students and many families at no cost.
Allen emphasized that these types of partnerships are what make a lot of the programming — from community gardens to cooking classes to encouraging students to eat breakfast — possible for St. Vrain.
