Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
IRONWOOD FIRST graders gather with the new salad bars the school district received Friday as part of the school's campaign to provide more nutritious lunches for students. From left are, first row - Moriah Shinaway, Lily Nolan-Couillard, Jaelyn Novascone and Cohen Saari; second row - Marisol Brown, Janessa Miskovich, Brynn Semo and Elizabeth Niemi, and third row - Jada Godfrey, Simeon Ruotsala, Kiva Davis, Alec Huotari, Nick Miskovich, Claire Hall, Alexis Tibaldo, Talan Hughes, Eli Ruotsala, Breleigh Lahti, Madeline Ranta and Logan Recla.
IRONWOOD - Elementary-aged students in the Ironwood Area Schools will soon have more options for lunch after the district received two new salad bars Friday.
The salad bars were donated to the school through the Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools grant program designed to improve nutrition of school lunches by providing increased fruits and vegetables.
Mary Hampston, the district's director of food service, said by giving students more choices in the variety of fruits and vegetables available, the salad bar is increasing chances of students enjoying the nutritional changes.
"Instead of having kids take the fruit or vegetable that you want them to eat, you put them out there so that they start taking fruits and vegetables they want to try. That way, they try more fruits and vegetables," said Hampston. "It's proven that kids will try a vegetable or a fruit ... on their own before they'd ever eat what you put on their plate."
In addition to promoting healthy options, the salad bars will help the district meet new federal requirements that mandate fruits and vegetables be served as part of school lunches.
Hampston applied for the grant - which she found out about through the Healthy U.S. School Challenge - in the spring of 2013, but the popularity of the program delayed delivery of the salad bars until now. The two salad bars that the district received are part of the 4,000 salad bars the program will distribute throughout the country this year.
While the grant doesn't put an exact price on the value of the salad bars, Hampston roughly estimates the district has received $5,000 in free equipment.
The salad bars, which were designed to be smaller to suit the younger students, will be used in the elementary school cafeteria since the high school cafeteria already has a salad bar.
The hope is elementary students will learn to incorporate healthy choices into their lunches at a young age, rather than having it forced upon them once they are in high school.
"My vision is that ... we teach kids at the younger age to eat the fruits and vegetables so it won't be as hard as they get older," Hampston said.
"You don't want to tell (high school seniors) all of a sudden, 'you have to have fruits and vegetables on your tray every day,' they kind of look at me like I'm crazy."
Hampston hopes to have the salad bars set up next week and having them fully-integrated into the lunch routine by the end of March. She is also seeking grant funding to increase the amount of fresh produce that the district can offer students.
Hampston, who works to cooperate with the Wakefield and Bessemer districts so that all the students in the area benefit, said that Wakefield has also been selected to receive a new salad bar.
