New Haven Public Schools are feeding the future with salad bars from Whole Foods Market®

New Haven Public Schools are feeding the future with salad bars from Whole Foods Market®

Thirty three schools will have new healthy salad bars in lunchrooms in time for back-to-school

NEW HAVEN, Conn. (May 20, 2011) – The New Haven Public Schools (NHPS) were selected to receive 33 healthy salad bar kits through Whole Foods Market’s Salad Bar Project, a campaign created to help empower schools to increase their students’ lunchtime consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Tim Cipriano, Food Service Director for New Haven Public Schools, led the grant application process for the school district and was thrilled when he was notified that 33 schools would receive salad bar grants from Whole Foods Market. “With the addition of these salad bars, the children in our schools will have more access to fresh vegetables and legumes. Salad bars are a great way to open up the world of fresh, locally grown products to our children. Some of the produce served will come from our own school gardens. The concept of students eating student grown food will have a significant impact on the lives of our children.”


Schools receiving salad bars include:

- Augusta Lewis Troup School
- L.W. Beecher Museum School of Arts & Sciences
- Benjamin Jepson
- Betsy Ross Arts School
- Bishop Woods School
- Brennan-Rogers School (2, one for each building)
- Celentano Museum Academy
- Clemente Leadership Academy
- Clinton Avenue School
- Columbus Family Academy
- Conte-West Hills School
- Davis Street Arts & Academics School
- East Rock School
- Edgewood School
- Engineering and Science University Magnet School
- Fair Haven School
- High School In the Community
- Hill Central Music Academy
- John C. Daniels School of International Communication
- John S. Martinez School
- King-Robinson International Baccalaureate School
- Lincoln Bassett School
- Metropolitan Business Academy
- Microsociety School
- Nathan Hale School
- New Horizons School
- Ross Woodward Classical Studies School
- Sound School
- Truman School
- Wexler-Grant School
- Worthington Hooker School (2, one for each building)


Of the nearly 20,800 students enrolled in New Haven Public Schools, 80 percent qualify for free or reduced lunches. Last school year, over 5.12 million meals were served to students.

“Salad bars are an amazing tool to empower children to make healthy food choices,” said Nona Evans, Salad Bar Project Coordinator for Whole Foods Market. “According to a 2010 UCLA study, children who have salad bars in school lunchrooms consume significantly more fruits and vegetables than those who do not. We hope many more schools and districts will apply for a salad bar grant through Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools whose goal is 6000 salad bars in schools by 2013.”


The salad bar kits include a five-well Cambro® salad bar complete with utensils, pan inserts, chilling pads and training tools. The NHPS salad bars will feature a variety of locally sourced fresh foods that Cipriano has helped source through Farm to School and other healthy eating initiatives. For more information on New Haven Public Schools visit www.nhps.net/NHSchoolFood and more information on Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools go to http://www.saladbars2schools.org/.


About Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools:

Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools was developed to support the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative to solve childhood obesity within a generation. Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools is a comprehensive grassroots public health effort to mobilize and engage stakeholders at the national, state and local level to support salad bars in schools. With the goal of significantly increasing children’s fruit and vegetable consumption through school salad bars, the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative is committed to 6,000 salad bars to schools across the country over the next three years. The founding partners of the Lets Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative are the National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, the Food, Family, Farming (F3) Foundation, and the United Fresh Produce Association Foundation. For more information about Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools, interested parties are encouraged to visit the initiative’s website, http://www.saladbars2schools.org/.