‘I hope there can be a change;’ Peaceful protesters mobilize at SVVSD for healthier food

Timberline PK-8 seventh-grader Diana Sanchez had many cheering during Wednesday night’s St. Vrain Valley School District Board meeting as she left the lectern. She doesn’t like the food her school is offering students and she’s hoping her words will make a difference.

“I honestly believe that the food is frozen and/or not cooked completely,” Sanchez told the board. “For breakfast, I don’t just want a piece full of sugar. Why don’t you include eggs, toasted bread, bacon or fresh fruit?”

She made a couple of nutritious suggestions to the board including offering grilled chicken and a complete salad, explaining her school’s food doesn’t have any taste, isn’t appetizing, and she would like the students’ choices to be healthier and fresh.

“I hope there can be a change,” she said.

Sanchez and about 60 other students, parents and residents turned out for a peaceful protest with colorful signs and a lot of passion to support Engaged Latino Parents Advancing Student Outcomes (ELPASO) Voz Longmont, a grassroots group working to change the way SVVSD operates its food system.

ELPASO Voz Longmont community organizer Caro Neri, whose children attend Boulder schools, told the Longmont Times-Call the group now has 22 families as members, who believe fresh and healthy meals should be served in all schools in order to help children be prepared to learn. The group has been lobbying school leaders for more than two years to have more food prepared from scratch with local ingredients.

Neri thinks events such as peaceful protests are important to raise awareness for their cause. She hopes that someday the School Board will take their position seriously and make a plan for action.

“Every time we have a door shut, we open a new one,” she said, adding that the group still has a lot to learn and they are currently seeking support from local growers.

“We want to go to farms, we want to go to summer camps, we want to do a lot of things to increase the idea and to put it to the kids that local and fresh food is the best for them,” Neri said.

Kerri McDermid, chief communications officer for SVVSD, told the Longmont Times-Call that the district maintains a strong focus on nutrition and has received recognition, including from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, for its farm-to-school program.

“All of our nutrition information for each meal is available in detail on the Nutrition Services website,” she said. “Almost every day includes scratch-made food, and fresh fruits and vegetables are always available, including salad bars.”

McDermid said of the approximately 4 million meals that the Nutrition Services team has served this school year, all meet or exceed the standards set by the USDA. Local produce, including organic produce from Colorado’s Western Slope, is used whenever available. In addition, the district provides more than 6,000 snacks weekly for extended learning after-school programs.

She added that special meal modifications are already made daily for 253 students and that currently there are more than 2,000 special diet needs districtwide for religion preferences, allergies and individual requirements.

She said the menu for St. Vrain schools can be found at https://stvrainnutrition.org/?page=menus.

Richard Garcia thinks it is critical that local youths are fed nutritious meals. He said it seems like the district has already heard enough from parents and it shouldn’t be complicated for the school district to do something about the parents concerns.

“I’m here to support them, it’s extremely important,” said Garcia, who identified himself as a friend of ELPASO Voz Longmont. “Some of the kids, especially with the Latino community, have high incidences of diabetes.”

“Our kids are in the middle of a health crisis. I really feel like the school has a responsibility to do all it can to promote the health of kids,” said Christina Edstrom.

Edstrom and her family were among the first to arrive outside the SVVSD building for the protest. Her young ones attend Eagle Crest Elementary and Altona Middle School. She said that research shows kids who eat well — lot of fresh produce and unprocessed foods — learn better.

“The school district really needs to prioritize. They’ve taken some good steps but need to take it further, and reduce the amount of processed food,” she said. “They miss less school because of sick days, so it’s not only in the best interest of the kids and their families, but also the school district.”

McDermid said SVVSD received an $11,700 grant this year from the Colorado Department of Education and the USDA Farm-to-School program to support student-led and grown agriculture for school cafeterias. Nine schools will participate by growing produce in their established school education gardens and using the yield in their own school cafeteria for recipe development and taste testing.

Change is possible, Neri said.

More than 1,200 people have signed a petition on social media aimed at increasing awareness and community involvement with ELPASO Voz Longmont.