This fall, students at two very different schools in New York state will enjoy menus consisting entirely of fresh, seasonal and often organic foods procured from local and regional sources. One of these schools, the Ross School, is a small, experimental private school with abundant resources. Its food program, while ambitious, unusual and exciting, doesn't raise skeptical eyebrows.

The second school has no special advantage other than leaders willing to embrace innovation and take a risk. Bridgehampton, a K-12 school on Long Island, N.Y., contracts with Ross to provide its students and teachers with the same meals the private-school kids enjoy. This is proving to be cost-effective and to have wide-ranging benefits, with administrators and students alike applauding a school food program that many would dismiss as impossible in a public school setting.

 Visionary Ann Cooper, the white-tablecloth chef, author and sustainable agriculture and food advocate who created and runs the Ross food program and worked out the modifications that Bridgehampton requires, is both passionate and insistent about using fresh, locally produced foods and integrating food, cooking and nutrition into the curriculum.

Cooper's uncompromising standards and the let's-do-it attitude of administrators at Ross and Bridgehampton may be exceptions to the norm, especially for elementary and secondary grades. But their example may be the leading edge of a trend. Across the country, initiatives are under way to change school food systems. Many of these--particularly those in higher education institutions and in private schools--specifically aim to integrate organic foods in food service programs.

Others focus on buying from local and regional producers, and, in doing so, discover that many of the food producers interested in these programs are committed to organic practices. The farm-to-school (or farm-to-cafeteria) movement thus brings organic into schools as a secondary benefit, but makes inroads in public school systems and in larger districts and communities where a focus on "organic first" might create obstacles.

Organic advocates are finding many ways to take the organic message into schools, however. Where radical reformation of school food programs meets resistance, incremental steps, such as tasting fairs, are taking hold and allowing advocates to build on small successes. Organic producers and manufacturers are meeting the needs and interests of institutions with foodservice packaging, value-added marketing, and pricing that, if not competitive with conventional food service items, increasingly puts organic foods within the realm of possibility.

In most cases, it takes both individual champions and a village to change institutional status quo. While one dedicated "change agent" can stir things up, it takes more to go the distance with organic and sustainable food programs. That means supportive parents, educated and willing foodservice professionals, committed administrators and policy-makers, organic farmers, producers and manufacturers making product available in usable forms, appropriate kitchen facilities or transportation arrangements, and often, the participation of nonprofit food advocacy organizations that can get funding and provide organizational guidance.

As some failed initiatives have taught, it also takes a willingness to listen to what students want and to design a program that involves, educates, and nourishes them. And finally, it takes persistence, to keep looking for ways around obstacles, to learn from failures and to keep striving for healthy foods in schools. "If you want to [include organic and local foods], you'll find a way," says Nadeem Siddiqui, director of dining services at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California. "If you don't want to do it, you'll find many reasons not to."

All that for lunch? Yes, indeed, advocates say--when lunch fuels our children and, in turn, our communities and our future.  

The Roots of Concern 
Concern about the quality and nutritional value of school foods seems to be at all-time high, and for good reason. Too many American children are obese, undernourished, suffering from diet-related diseases such as diabetes, or hungry. With diets that provide too few critical nutrients and, often, too much fat, salt and sugar, children suffer in their daily lives and in their ability to reach their full potential for health and accomplishment as adults.

Although no one blames school foods as the cause of all these problems, many feel that school is one environment that should encourage excellent health. So they're making inroads wherever and whenever they can to improve food offerings in schools. In some cases, this includes finding inventive ways and sufficient means to include organic foods and ingredients in school foodservice.

Of course, it's possible to eat organic foods that are high in fats and sugar. But those who work to put organic items on foodservice menus seem to have a broader vision. Organic is much more likely to go hand-in-hand with nutritional education, an institutional or community commitment to environmental awareness, or support for local farmers and farm-to-school programs, as well as a mandate to replace empty calories with nourishing foods.

Some school districts, including those in New York and Los Angeles, have recently taken initial but meaningful steps to ban sodas and high-fat, high-calorie snacks in vending machines. This in itself is a critical admission of the need for change, especially when many schools benefit financially from the sales of these products. With children's health problems reaching crisis level, more schools and parents are realizing that the system must change, and that the real costs of cheap food may be too high.
 
 Pioneering Private Schools and Universities
 It's not surprising that some of the most impressive initiatives to improve the school food system are under way at private schools, colleges and universities. A high level of education is one of the most consistent indicators in marketing data about organic purchasers, and the natural and organic foods movement began in college towns with strong environmental awareness, diverse cultural and social interests, and health-minded residents.

It didn't take long, though, for the natural foods movement to expand and grow. Likewise, we can look to the pioneering programs at schools like Stanford, Princeton, Colorado College, Bates, and the University of Wisconsin, as well as secondary/elementary schools like the Ross School and many Waldorf schools, to lead the way in integrating organic products into foodservice. Here are a few stories that will make you wish you were headed for a college dining hall for dinner.

 Princeton University
The enthusiasm of Stu Orefice, director of dining services for Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey is completely contagious. Like many foodservice professionals, he'll tell you that his customers--6,500 Princeton students--have been the driving force behind the changes he's making. The "Green Dining" movement at Princeton goes far beyond lip service, however, as it works to build sustainable choices into procurement policy at an impressive level.

A substantial increase in organic purchases is just one facet of Princeton's program. This year, the Dining Services department and Greening Princeton, a campus environmental coalition, surveyed diners in an "Eco-Friendly Foods Survey." Policy recommendations followed, including: setting a cap percentage difference between the price of organic and non-organic products, and always purchasing the organic alternative when the difference in price drops below that bar (now tentatively set at 5 percent over the price of conventional, Orefice says); using Fair Trade coffee in residential colleges; having at least 99 percent of the chicken purchased be antibiotic-free chicken; adopting a 100 percent eco-friendly menu for seafood (in accordance with recommendations from National Audubon Society, Environmental Defense and other conservation groups); and actively pursuing local food purchasing options.  "We're influenced by our customers," Orefice says. "On this campus they're more knowledgeable than some others." Yet it's clear from talking with him, and from the executive summary of the Greening Dining report, that he and his staff are as informed about the environmental, social, and long-term economic benefits of eco-friendly foods as any advocate.
 "Students get the word out and educate other students, and our management staff is educated as well. The purchasing department knows to ask the questions. Ours will ask now if a product is organic," Orefice says.

Orefice is especially proud of the sustainable seafood purchasing program, which may be unique to the Princeton campus. "When a seafood vendor calls us, we ask them if they're familiar with Audubon's scale of standards. We ask if [the fish is] farm-raised. Clearly all of our managers are in tune and we've been educated by our own students."

A program like Princeton's can be influential. Last year, the school purchased 760 pounds of organic cereal, a recent addition, and 2,900 pounds of organic salad mix. And Orefice sees more and more foodservice packaging of organic items, a trend echoed by every source for this article. "By the end of the decade our menus will be completely different than they are today, and it does have broad-reaching effects," Orefice says.

Orefice recommends that foodservice professionals meet with vendors to find out what organic foods are available, and that they walk grocery store aisles and become familiar with organic options. And while he acknowledges that cost is a factor, his staff is sometimes surprised that a low-bid choice will turn out to be organic.

Graduate students have the most financial concern about cost of the program, Orefice says, but "by and large most of the customers have been thrilled." With innovations like a Visiting Chefs program, the thrills are likely to continue.

Princeton's foodservice hasn't gone unnoticed; the university won the 2003 Ivy Award from Restaurants & Institutions magazine, and has won internal awards for environmental successes. In turn, Orefice credits Yale University's Sustainable Food Project, initiated in part by the daughter of chef Alice Waters, a student there, as an inspiration and resource.
 
On the Web:
http://www.princeton.edu/~ds/
R&I magazine article, Ivy Award: http://www.rimag.com/2003/0515/ivy_princeton.htm

 No-GMO Mandate Means Almost All Organic
In the case of Maharishi University of Management (MUM), a private college in Fairfield, Iowa, institutional policy helped drive a foodservice program that's almost entirely organic. "Four years ago I was given the mandate to avoid genetically modified foods in any shape or form," says Tom Siegel, foodservice director for the university. "To me, the best way to do that was to go organic." (By federal law, genetic modification is prohibited in foods bearing the organic label.)

The university was founded in 1971 by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who brought the practice of Transcendental Meditation to the United States. MUM offers bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in the arts, sciences, humanities and business, as well as programs in sustainable living, digital media, and Vedic medicine and science. As part of its institutional philosophy, menus are vegetarian and free of genetically modified ingredients.

Siegel met the challenge of a no-GMO foodservice program by devising his own purchasing system, ordering directly from about ten different sources, including organic companies such as Organic Valley  "It took maybe six months," Siegel says. "I had to use distributors to a certain extent but I also wanted to go directly to producers and manufacturers." Buying direct, he says, saves money; with the large volume he guarantees by serving 1,000 to 1,200 meals daily, he's able to get  "distributor pricing."

The increase in foodservice packaging among organic manufacturers has helped enormously, Siegel says. Today his foodservice program is 85 percent to 90 percent certified organic. "I don't think anybody can truly reach 100 percent organic now with the certified organic label," he says. "Some spices, some things indispensable to foodservice don't come certified organic." Siegel buys rice from India for preferred flavor, and has it tested for residues, but all of his produce, dairy, beans, grains, flours, and sugar are bought in the United States and are certified organic according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) standards.

Incoming students undergo an orientation that includes education about the vegetarian and organic policies of the school. And Siegel finds himself educating other foodservice directors as well. In fact, he says, when Yale University's Berkeley College made the decision to go organic, the foodservice director called Siegel to find out how to do it despite budgetary hurdles. "It's so easy for them to call a conventional vendor like Sysco," Siegel says. "This is more effort initially to organize, but once it's set up it's no harder."

And that, Siegel believes, also applies to public schools in upper and lower grades. "If it's not 90 percent organic, they can start buying some organic; in some cases organic broccoli is as cheap as conventionally grown broccoli. Any public school can find organic items that are comparable in price. It's really a question of choice. If somebody feels the health of their student population is important, they can do it." Siegel believes organic foods can help increase student performance, leaving them more focused, happier and healthier.

In approaching school administrators, Siegel says, "I wouldn't be antagonistic," encouraging parents instead to stress the benefits of organic to health and the environment.

On the Web:
www.mum.edu
Article about Tom Siegel: www.mum.edu/news/siegel.shtml
 
The On-Campus Restaurant Model: Wild Sage
The "Clean Cuisine" of Wild Sage restaurant on the campus of Colorado College, a private liberal arts school in Colorado Springs, Colorado, is the brainchild of Lauren Bell. A Mill Valley, California, chef with a dream of creating a chain of eco-friendly casual restaurants serving healthy, natural and primarily organic foods, Bell saw a realistic economic option in licensing her concept to a larger company after chef Wolfgang Puck encouraged her to investigate such an arrangement.

She found an interested partner in Sodexho, the largest foodservice contract provider in North America, with about 800 higher education sites across the country. A licensing contract with Sodexho makes Wild Sage Foods an "approved vendor" for the company's various divisions, which include education, military, corporate, and healthcare institutions.

In January, 2003, the first Wild Sage restaurant opened on the Colorado College campus [full disclosure: Coloraco College is the author's alma mater]. With healthy versions of casual "comfort food"--wraps, sandwiches, burgers, desserts--and a coffee and juice bar, Wild Sage's ingredients are about 80 percent organic.

"It's great to start in the college atmosphere," Bell says. "They appreciate the socially responsible company, green design, many of the elements of Wild Sage in addition to organic foods. The students were actively looking for a program like this. Initially there was skepticism that it wouldn't be authentic, but they saw that we were and that we had shared values."

With a high level of interest from other higher education sites, Bell's biggest challenge is Sodexho's stringent procurement policy, which requires compliance with an insurance policy that is prohibitive for some small vendors. "We're working closely with the procurement department heads [at Sodexho] to figure out ways to navigate within their system and simultaneously bring in the foods we need to have. It's a partnership, and it hasn't come up before to them," Bell says. But she's optimistic. "They realize this is a long-term sustainable trend; this is a business piece they want, and we're working together to make this work for everybody."

At the same time, organic manufacturers and producers must offer foodservice packaging, Bell admonishes. "If you're doing organic and you're not doing foodservice, you should be. Some of the biggest companies already are--they've realized this is a huge untapped frontier. Do foodservice [packaging] and we'll definitely take a look at it," she says.

Bell is less confident that public school lunch programs will be able to incorporate organic foods with current budgets. "We go to campuses where there are meal plans so we can tap into that for our revenue stream," she says. In addition, she expects to open Wild Sage restaurants in corporate and government offices.

"I'm hopeful that this will open up opportunities for a lot of vendors out there," Bell says. "Mostly, our goal is to make delicious and nutritious foods available to the mass market."

On the Web:
www.wildsagefoods.com
www.coloradocollege.edu

One Step Makes a Difference: Fair Trade/Organic Coffee at Monterey Institute of International Studies
At the Monterey Institute of International Studies (MIIS), a small, private graduate university in Monterey, California, with about 700 students from around the world, one activist student led the way to convert coffee sold on campus from conventional to about 90 percent organic and fair trade. Jason Benford, a MIIS student and the policy program intern at the Santa Cruz, California-based Organic Farming Research Foundation, calls his successful initiative a "first step" and hopes to begin introducing locally grown produce in school foodservice next year.

A graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz, Benford had served on a coalition to change the coffee at that school from conventional to fair trade. "I had dealt with procedures to go through, working with administration and school officials and foodservice to change over," Benford says.

Benford began by visiting TransFair USA, a San Francisco-based nonprofit certification agent for fair trade products and practices, where staff assisted him with flyers, information packets, and procedural advice to help educate and inform other students about his mission. "I started talking with TransFair in November, 2002, and then started making presentations to classes and teachers about my idea and they were very supportive," Benford says. "We got some student signings to say they wanted it, and I was able to leverage that with foodservice."

By March, 2003, MIIS was offering two fair trade and organic blends (French Roast and Guatemalan) from Berkeley coffee roaster Uncommon Grounds; Benford's goals included using a local supplier. In addition, MIIS chose organic Big Sur Blend; all proceeds from sales of this coffee go to a conservation easement in Big Sur, California. The same roaster provided organic tea after students expressed interest.

"Price is the biggest obstacle, along with equipment," Benford says. The school's former coffee supplier, a large conventional roaster, had provided free brewers and grinders. MIIS was able to keep one of the previous roaster's brewing machines and purchased a second one.

"It's still going and still working," Benford says. "The students do pay for it, and the price went up about 25 cents [per cup]." The Institute still sells conventional coffee in one location.  At brewing stations, educational information explains fair trade and organic coffee growing practices and tells the story of the Big Sur easement, helping buyers understand how their choice of daily caffeine dose effects the world around them.

On the Web:
www.miis.edu
www.transfairusa.org
www.uncommongrounds.net

Doing the Right Thing at Stanford
Nadeem Siddiqui came to Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, as executive director of dining services in 2002. He'd made his mark at Cornell University, where many of the most innovative foodservice directors seem to have spent some time, as an advocate for local foods. In California, he's using Stanford's national reputation to set an influential example for supporting organic and locally grown foods.

When you're spending millions of dollars on food each year, that kind of attitude can rock the foodservice world. "Organic food is a passion I feel strongly about, and I think it's the right thing to do," Siddiqui says. "Someone once said that the right thing is never the easiest, and trust me, it hasn't been easy to find the resources and support to do it in the right way."

Tapping Siddiqui's experience at Cornell in working with local growers, Stanford created an agreement just a few months ago in California's Central Coast region with a cooperative of about 17 farms. "We're experimenting with organic foods for some of our facilities," Siddiqui says. "We're moving ahead with the concept and we've tried it for a couple of months. We're hoping we can do a small farmer's market on campus and invite local farmers to educate and expose people."

Even at prestigious Stanford, budgets are a constraint. "Cost is the challenge. Organic is more expensive and budgets are tight for students, so the volume isn't there. The farms we're working with are working on a competitive pricing structure for us that will be a few cents higher, but still doable," Siddiqui says.

With USFoods as Stanford's distributor, Siddiqui also navigates challenges with delivery schedules of smaller farmers and the insurance liability requirements of the institution. "No one here is hostile to the idea of organic," he says. "Administratively you have to have certain insurance, and the large companies have a monopoly because of that. And there are issues with delivery. You have to find ways to be creative, find ways to help small farmers get the insurance, do the paperwork, have equal footing, if you will, in the market."

What makes this possible? "100 percent support in what I'm trying to do," Siddiqui says. "We hope to start changing the mindset of other schools or businesses or universities who might have a negative feeling or negative trend toward organic. We think we can help make the change and do the right thing the right way, and it's important to Stanford dining."

Though organic is a relatively small piece of Stanford's foodservice program right now, there is a campus farm run by students and, it seems, a momentum that will move things quickly in the direction of more organic offerings. "I think there are a lot of misconceptions that organic food is not available or too expensive," Siddiqui says. "We all have to work hard to dispel misunderstandings."

Siddiqui advises parents of school-age children to talk to the school board and the people who operate foodservice programs, helping them understand organic benefits. "Take time," he says. "It doesn't happen with one e-mail. You really have to be persistent and believe in what you believe in. You'll get many 'no's' but out of one hundred no's you might get one yes.  "And it does filter out to other schools. It's not for personal gain, but out of respect for where you live, and where you work, and the earth. These are very positive issues with organic."

On the Web:
http://www.stanford.edu
Article on Nadeem Siddiqui: http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/october9/dining-109.html

State Schools in the Running

Private universities and colleges are not the only institutions that have established organic food purchasing programs. The University of Wisconsin at Madison is just one example; the university foodservice program offers locally grown, organic blue corn tortilla chips, as well as locally grown apples, beef, and potatoes. Special dinners feature organic and locally grown foods to help raise awareness and educate students.

The Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems at UW-Madison credits student interest in organic and locally grown foods with creating sufficient demand. As with many states, the decline of rural communities and farms is a political and social concern for many residents, and university support for these enterprises can make a vital difference.

On the Web:
Center for Integrated Agricultural Systems
www.wisc.edu/cias/news/organic_dorm.html
The College Food Project
Extensive information and data on local buying at the University of Wisconsin
www.wisc.edu/cias/research/colgfood/econimp.html

The Organic Challenge for Elementary and Secondary Schools
In public elementary and secondary school foodservice programs, emphasis on organic foods tends to take a back seat to other agendas, including eliminating sodas and snack foods, improving general nutritional quality of breakfasts and lunches, purchasing locally grown produce in farm-to-school initiatives (also called farm-to-cafeteria), offering vegetarian and vegan alternatives, and providing regional and "culturally appropriate" foods. Yet organic is on the radar screen.  "Our district is not yet in a position to initiate a focus on organic foods, but there are community groups interested in moving us in this direction," wrote Shannon S. Stember, RD, LD, with the Portland, Ore., Public Schools Nutrition Services, in response to my inquiry. "We are certainly open to the idea, but at this point cost differences remain a significant barrier."

Here, we'll look at strategies that have shown some degree of success in increasing awareness among parents and students and setting the stage for establishing organic purchasing programs in the schools. These include the farm-to-school movement, tasting fairs, and community advisory councils or committees.

Farm-to-School: Winning Support 
From salad bar ingredients in Santa Monica, California, schools to the Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch program in Madison, Wisconsin, farm-to-school programs are gaining credibility and earning well-deserved attention. At publication time, congressmen in both the House of Representatives and Senate have sponsored bills to provide one-time grant funds of up to $100,000 per school district to create farm-to-school programs. 

The Community Food Security Coalition, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that promotes comprehensive solutions to the nation's food and farming problems, designed the "Healthy Kids: America's Farmers Feed America's Children" initiative and, at publication time, was actively working to secure passage and more congressional sponsors (learn more at www.foodsecurity.org).

For many schools, farm-to-school programs have an immense appeal, and the success of existing initiatives can help overcome doubts about logistics and positive results. The multiple benefits of providing market access for local farmers, bringing fresh produce to the school lunchroom, and supporting regional economies help balance initial obstacles that many schools must surmount, such as training staff and adapting kitchen facilities designed solely for packaged foodservice menus.

In addition, some federal government support, or at least tacit approval, already exists for farm-to-school programs. The Food and Nutrition Service of the USDA offers a resource booklet, available online, called Small Farms/School Meals Initiative Town Hall Meetings: A Step-by-Step Guide on How to Bring Small Farms and Local Schools Together (www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Lunch/Downloadable/small.pdf).

Like school garden projects, farm-to-school programs offer opportunities to create activities and educational components for children, such as visits from farmers and field trips to farms. These community relationships build goodwill as well as providing fresh foods to the schools.

Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch, a pilot program in three elementary schools in Madison, Wisconsin, now entering its second year under a two-year federal Sustainable Agriculture Research & Education (SARE) grant, is designed to include such support activities, including field trips, classroom visits by farmers, taste-testing local food, school-wide food fairs and local meals, lunchroom composting and recycling, school gardening, curricula enrichment, and art projects focused on themes of food and community.

Sara Tedeschi, project coordinator for Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch, notes that students in the pilot schools are indeed getting organic foods through this initiative, though it isn't defined as an organic program. "While the majority of [those involved in creating the program] come from an organic perspective and ethic, and would like to be able to talk about it more, at the beginning stages we had to be careful not to be too ideological about it," she says. "We were trying to build a broad base of support, and it worked for us to come at it from the point of view of supporting local and sustainably minded farmers. But the reality of this is that most of our farmers are certified organic. We had the first food come through the foodservice this spring, beautiful organic salads and muffins. But we didn't begin by putting organic into the mission statement of the project."

Because the project is still fairly new, Tedeschi says, questions remain about the viability of the program for farmers. "We're still feeling it out, and the cost portion of this is still unknown at this point. What will the farmers accept? How far will the money go? This is still exploratory."

While the program has won a very high level of interest and cooperation from schools in Madison, Tedeschi cites difficulties in physical and institutional constraints that can't be changed overnight. "Cost is a huge consideration, labor is a huge constraint, facilities and equipment is a constraint because it's evolved completely away from using fresh produce and fresh ingredients," she says. "Transportation [of food] to the schools, and the length of the lunch--the kids have basically fifteen minutes to eat, so we can't propose a salad bar or lunch bar."

In response, Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch is exploring ways to help farmers create foodservice-ready product through some minimal processing, such as making ready-to-deliver carrot coins, diced onions, or broccoli florets.

Because the program is new and because the program is built around the specific needs of the community, it remains to be seen if Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch's strategies are transferable to other school districts or replicable in larger schools. Tedeschi emphasizes that there are a variety of points of origin for such a program--that the initiative can be "bottom up, grassroots, but sometimes it's top down. If you get a superintendent or school board administrator involved, sometimes a policy can be developed and then the steps taken."

Tedeschi also advises parents organizing a farm-to-school program to be eminently respectful of all stakeholders as you enter their territory. "I want to really encourage parents to take a positive tack on this," she says. "Parents are really upset about the state of school lunches. But foodservice gets lots of negative attention and very little positive. The strength of our project is that we've taken really positive angles, not trashing, criticizing or ranting. Parents need to be really cautioned about that."

Paula Jones, director of the San Francisco Food Systems Council, an initiative of the public health system in that district, echoes Tedeschi's warning. "Be an activist at the legislative level, and understand the whole food environment," Jones says. "Try to understand the situation before you attack. It can only be fixed by working together with the unions, with the school nutrition staff. None of the food workers want the kids to have bad food. For the most part, people want to serve the best food they can."

Jones cautions that large urban school districts such as the San Francisco schools, with a high percentage of lower-income children and enormous ongoing budget crises, face significant challenges in using either organic or locally grown foods. "Start small and work extremely closely with your district," she advises. While systemic changes to the national school lunch program may be slow in coming, Jones sees opportunities to have an impact in the greater school food environment, such as vending machines, a la carte sales, snack bars, and food items used for fundraising efforts.

On the Web:
Wisconsin Homegrown Lunch: www.reapfoodgroup.org/farmtoschool/
Community Food Security Coalition: www.foodsecurity.org
San Francisco Food Systems Council: www.sffoodsystems.org

Building Awareness, Making Connections

In Highland Park, Ill., Sonya Kugler of Natural Needs Marketing, an organic and natural foods marketing and event company, advocates a "guerilla marketing" approach to putting organic foods in the schools. Kugler developed a lunch-hour "taste-a-thon" program involving products and literature from many organic foods manufacturers. At elementary and junior high schools in the region, Kugler cracked the "tough nut" of school foodservice by setting up a food fair to introduce a different way of eating, sending kids home with bags of sample products, store coupons and maps.

 "The feedback was positive," Kugler says. "Kids like the food, but half of them never saw it before. Kids have to want it and then it's all about educating the parent and the teacher. Parents have to understand there's an alternative. It's like smoking -- we have to put forward the best possible choice to children. I don't care what people do in their homes, but this is school."

Kugler likes to see initiatives begin with "the littlest kids" and help them make the connection between farms and food. "There is such a disconnect with children that food actually comes from the Earth," Kugler says. "I have brought in farmers for these kids to meet. It brought me such great joy to bring in a farmer to these suburban children and say he or she is as important as a doctor, as a clergyman."

Kugler's next goal is changing vending machine products in her local schools. "It's on the table for next year, we're going through the system and process," she says. Natural Needs' Taste-a-thon program has been incorporated into three schools in Illinois School District 112, and the company is building its own storefront and greenhouse in downtown Highland Park. "This is it," she says. "This is my own hometown, where I went to school, my husband and all five of our kids went to school. It's grassroots activism as consumer direct marketing. We can change the world!"

Chef Jesse Cool, author of Your Organic Kitchen (Rodale, 2000) and founder and chef of Flea Street Cafe in Menlo Park, Calif., also created a tasting fair for a local Palo Alto, Calif., elementary school. "I see it from a business perspective, and I don't think it will work otherwise, no matter how dedicated the people are," Cool says. "So I thought, okay, business. We gathered together natural foods companies, including Horizon Organic, Cascadian Farm, Newman's Own Organics, Santa Cruz Organics, and local farmers, and we did a huge tasting. The kids loved the food, and we had them vote on it. The first thing is that the kids have to like it. We got all over the news."

The success of the tasting fair convinced the school board and the foodservice company to agree to try a healthy lunch option, but Cool says the project to include a natural and organic option is now at a standstill. Among challenges that must be addressed, she cites difficulties in communication between foodservice and parents, pricing considerations, and the quality and taste of the healthy food that was ultimately served.

"School boards are in a constraint. The solution, in my opinion, would be not to change the whole system, just offer one healthy option and see how people respond to it. Make it reasonably priced, and similar food to what the kids are already eating, like a burrito, but one made with natural and organic ingredients. Get the vendors involved so they get a little publicity."

Cool's emphasis on making healthy school lunches viable from a business and economic perspective in no way shortchanges her idealism. "The long term vision is about how paramount it is that kids eat differently," she says. "It's cooperation, and it takes somebody who is going to sit at the table and negotiate the whole thing. You have to go right into the school system and right into the foodservice, but I believe it can be done."

On the Web:
Natural Needs naturalneeds@home.com
Jesse Cool's Cooleatz www.cooleatz.com
 
Grassroots Activism and Lessons Learned
There is no single right way to initiate improvements in school foodservice programs. It seems clear, however, that the most successful and sustainable efforts will take a positive approach, engage all those affected and involved, and be designed to meet the specific needs of a school and community rather than take a cookie-cutter approach.

Forming a council or committee can be a great place to start asking the right questions and begin creating an action plan. The Marin Food Systems Project, part of the Environmental Education Council of Marin in Marin County, California, recommends forming a School Nutrition Advisory Council, including key decision-makers or representatives. The project's Web site (www.eecom.net/projects_school_actionguide.htm) offers a downloadable survey and survey guide to begin assessing the needs of each school.

Even when all the elements appear to be in place, initiatives can fail. The highly publicized attempt to bring organic foods into Berkeley, California high schools ended last year with a lot of disappointed constituents. Though analysis of the effort hasn't yielded a consensus on the reason for the program's failure, many believed that the students' tastes and desires were simply not adequately taken into account. Time and time again, those involved in school food reform say that it's critical to know what kids will actually want and eat, while at the same time acknowledging that schools are accountable and must be responsible.

Some school systems might only be able to start with the smallest increments of change, while others might be ready for more. Some activists may want to work on the larger legislative level, others on local district policy, still others on building relationships and producing events like tasting fairs that can include organic foods.

First steps, therefore, include asking lots of questions. What are your kids eating at school? What are the resources of the community and the facilities of the school? Are funds available or can they be rechanneled? What contractual limitations exist? What do other parents want? How informed and interested are other parents, administrators, faculty, foodservice professionals, and students?

Whether you're able to build a program as ambitious as Ann Cooper's all-sustainable menu at the Ross School or simply make your voice count in getting healthful choices into the vending machines children use, there can be no turning back in the effort to feed our children well.

Visit the Resources section for links to several "road maps" for school change, tips for designing your own school food reform program, and downloadable information pages about organic foods and how kids can benefit from eating organic.

Elaine Marie Lipson (emlipson@aol.com) is a writer and editor specializing in natural health and sustainable living, organic foods and related issues, and textile arts and crafts, and the author of The Organic Foods Sourcebook (Mcgraw-Hill Contemporary, 2001), a consumer guide to the meaning and benefits of organic foods and farming.