Congratulations again on winning a Love Your Veggies™ Nationwide School Lunch Campaign grant from the makers of Hidden Valley® Salad Dressings. We hope you are as excited as we are to start celebrating and sharing the exciting news of how you'll get your students to eat more fresh fruit and veggies!
Click here for more information on the School Nutrition Association's nutrition education and food safety training courses being offered as part of your Love Your Veggies™ grant award.
View instructions for SNA training log on: Click here
Click here to find some valuable tools, tips and ideas to help you announce your grant to your community and your local media.
For even more resources dedicated to helping your students love their vegetables, click on the following links, provided by the School Nutrition Association.
Fruits and Vegetables Galore: Click here
Farm to School/School Gardening Information: Click here
Fruit and Vegetables Information for Nutrition Education/Promotion: Click here
“Eating the Rainbow” Activity: Click here
USDA School Lunch Salad Bar Study: Click here
Model Salad Bar Programs: Click here
School Nutrition Association's Nutrition Education
and Food Safety Training Courses
Welcome! The School Nutrition Association would like to congratulate you for being selected as one of the 51 recipients of a $10,000 Love Your Veggies™ nutrition grant for the 2008-2009 school year!
For the second concurrent year, the School Nutrition Association (SNA) has partnered with the makers of Hidden Valley® Salad Dressings to help develop and extend the Love Your Veggies™ Nationwide School Lunch Campaign. Together with Hidden Valley®, SNA promoted the grant guidelines and application for the Love Your Veggies™ campaign, and participated in the selection of grant recipients. Now, as you prepare to implement your vegetable programs, SNA will provide nutrition education and food safety training to representatives at all 51 winning schools.
The first component of the training will be composed of two online education courses, offered through SNA's Child Nutrition U (CNU) Web site. The names of the two courses are: HealthyEDGE: Building Healthy School Meals and NEHA Food Safety Management Principles. You are encouraged to take these courses over the summer prior to the start of the second component of the training in early Fall 2008. Below is a bulleted overview of the two online education courses:
Healthy Edge
Healthy Edge: Building Healthy School Meals is a professional development program that educates child nutrition professionals about many aspects of nutrition.
The program helps professionals:
- Satisfy program requirements outlined in USDA's School Meals Initiative for Healthy Children
- Offer nutritious and appealing meals that satisfy the dietary needs and food preferences of children
- Implement the best practices presented in Keys to Excellence in School Food and Nutrition Programs
- Satisfy the nutrition education specialized training requirement of School Nutrition Association Certification
This 10-hour course is broken into four interactive and engaging modules:
- 1. Nutrition
- 2. Nutrition Education
- 3. Preparing and Serving Healthy School Meals
- 4. Building Partnerships and Marketing
NEHA Food Safety Management
This 10-hour course supports those who are seeking certification as Food Safety Managers. NEHA certification, accredited in the United States by the Conference for Food Protection and the American National Standards Institute, is a benchmark for the food industry and part of a global standard in food safety education.
Part 1: The Importance of Food Safety
Part 2: Food Hazards and Foodborne Illness
Part 3: Preventing Foodborne Illness
Part 4: Food Safety Control
The second component of the training will consist of two 1- to 2-hour-long Web-based training seminars or "Webinars". The first Webinar, which is targeted for September 2008 will be entitled Tips for Successfully Evaluating Program Outcomes. This Webinar will talk about the importance of collecting baseline data before fully implementing the grant and will also review the set up and marketing of a salad bar program to get kids excited.
The second Webinar, scheduled for October 2008, will be entitled "Steps for Implementing a Farm-to-School program" and will cover steps one would undertake to begin planning procurement from local farmers and tying promotions and nutrition education into a farm-to-school program. And, for those schools already using local procurement, these steps can be used to promote your existing program right away.