Hi, I am Brad E., Fuel Up to Play 60 State Ambassador from Wyoming. Fuel Up to Play 60 is an organization that promotes healthy eating and getting 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Our team at Lincoln Middle School works hard to share this philosophy with our students and community. Recently, I suggested to the team that we work on sharing healthy breakfast ideas to work in conjunction with the #FuelGreatness campaign.
My program advisor and I went to a School Board Meeting where we were recognized for our work with FUTP 60. I had the idea to start working on the breakfast ideas that were supplied by National Dairy Council. I never realized what a great resource this web page is. It provides healthy eating recipes for every meal of the day. It also supplies information about Dairy Farms, FUTP60, and many other articles and suggestions for living healthy.
We had the thought to approach the School Board about getting some of the WDA breakfast recipes on the school menu. So, we contacted Linda Martin, our School Nutrition Director, to see if she would be willing to help us. We found the “Fruity Flatbread” recipe and asked if she would be able to make some samples to present to the Board. She was very willing to help us. We had enough food for everyone that attended that evening to try the healthy breakfast idea. It went over very well. Linda was very surprised at how good the flatbread tasted. She was willing to try it on the breakfast menu for the school district.
I went back to my FUTP 60 team after the meeting presentation. I was so excited about the prospect of having one of the breakfast choices on the school menu. Our team, along with our program advisors, brainstormed ideas about how to make sure this happened. Earlier in the year I went to the WAHPERD conference and worked with Cheryl Reumann to present ideas about Play 60 in Wyoming schools. She told me that other ambassadors were making videos presenting healthy breakfast ideas from the WDA website. I got the idea that our team could do this at our school.
The plan was to make the five recipes, and invite the Lincoln Middle School Staff, School Nutrition Director Linda Martin, the lunch ladies, and community members to a taste test of our foods. We split into groups and researched some WDA healthy breakfast ideas. We choose three breakfast recipes from the website, and two smoothie ideas were also chosen. We made plans to demonstrate and video while cooking the recipes. Everyone was to turn in their shopping list so we could gather the supplies.
The next dilemma was where are we going to cook the food? Our program advisors asked the Home Economics teacher if we could use her kitchens to cook the food. She was very excited to lend a hand. She thought it was a great idea to get student input in choosing breakfast menu ideas for the district. We went through a training of safety in the kitchen and were ready to go. We met after school and each team prepared their dish while our program advisors recorded them cooking. I have to say this was the best part of the whole project; I had so much fun working with my team. My program advisor’s Grandma came and worked with me on making my dish. It was exciting to have a community member take an interest in our project and want to help. We actually made enough food for our taste test which we were having the next morning.
What a great turn out we had for our taste test! Linda Martin came and tasted all of our recipes. She was very excited and happy that we wanted to make a change in our schools menu. We wanted to provide some healthy breakfast choices and we did something about it. She liked the three recipes, “Fruity Flatbread,” “Mega Cheese Muffin,” and the “Peaches-n-Cream Waffle Dunkers.” We provided her with the printed recipe for each of these dishes. She looked them over and said that they would be able to fit into her breakfast menu. She explained that she has to meet requirements from the state about what can go on her menu. She said that they would all fit into the requirements with a few changes. We had people from the school, the district personnel, and community members try our food. They all wanted copies to take home so they could make it for themselves. Now we just had to wait to see if she was really going to put the food on our school menu.
We got a call from Linda asking if our team would be available to promote the breakfast ideas during National School Breakfast week. This coincided with our #FuelGreatness campaign kickoff. We were very excited that she wanted us to help. We met every morning before school in the lunch room to get kids to try the new breakfast choices. We mixed ourselves in amongst the students to eat along with them while publicizing the fact that our ideas were a great healthy choice to make for breakfast. Each day Linda added one of our ideas to the menu. The students were appreciative of having more choices to eat. One student said “Look at my Fruity Flatbread, it is really pretty and it was so fun to make. I think this is so cool to be able to make my own creation of breakfast with choices they provided.” Over all, our mission of breakfast choices was successful.
Every other week at the Sweetwater School District #2, we have our breakfast ideas put on the menu for everyone to try for the rest of the year. I would say that we were successful in making our plan happen. We had help from our Program Advisors, Community Members, and the School board. The combination of all of these people made it possible.
About the Author
Brad E. was the 2014-15 Fuel Up to Play 60 Wyoming State Ambassador.
