A First Class Breakfast
Posted by Katherine Van Steenburgh on Monday, April 5, 2010
When I don’t eat breakfast, I am moody; I can’t focus, and I get very tired. We all have negative reactions to missing breakfast and so do kids who don’t eat breakfast.
This is one key reason that school breakfast is a main area of focus for Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, which will end childhood hunger in America by 2015.
We know if we can ensure kids are receiving a healthy breakfast each morning, we will have taken a significant step closer to ending childhood hunger. One of the most effective ways to do this is through innovative programs like in-classroom breakfast.
A few weeks ago, I posted about the in-classroom breakfast program being implemented in Houston. This may not seem like big news, but for the children of the Houston school district, it may actually be life changing.
The school breakfast participation rates in Houston are increasing to 80%, and research proves that kids who eat breakfast are more likely to excel in school. Since my last post, the Share Our Strength Hinges of Hope group met with Brian Giles, general manager of Houston’s in-classroom breakfast program for Aramark and the Houston school district.
Brian explained that the program is in place primarily because of the commitment of the superintendent, and the program is working because the Houston school district has designed a structured plan for the delivery of the breakfasts and for trash pickup. In other cities, these two elements have been obstacles to implementing the program, but Houston is learning how to break through those barriers.
Watch this video to see Houston’s “First Class Breakfast” Program in action.
Do you know of other schools that have innovative breakfast programs? Let us know.
What happens when you miss breakfast?
April 5, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: childhood hunger, Hinges of Hope, school breakfast
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