"Several of us will be attending the Green Schoolyards Conference and hopefully will come back with lots of ideas and resources. Meanwhile, I would like you all to look at this grant that could provide us with the funds to get fresh fruit/vegie snacks into classrooms next year on a regular basis. They say, "Each school grant will consist of $15,000 in direct funding." Here's the link: http://www.
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The deadline is November 7th so we'd need to act fast.
This really is a top priority for me - not just because it would cut down on the gluten being served at our school (my selfish goal), but because feeding all of our children healthy food is the right thing to do. Let's face it, access to fresh and healthy food, exercise/active play, and nature ("greener" schoolyards) has become a civil rights issue for our kids. Let's help them get what they are entitled to. "
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This is a fantastic opportunity; let's not let it slip away. Does anyone want to take ownership of this one?
1 comment:
One of the things we must provide in the grant is a budget. At the moment, I have only calculated costs that would cover k-3rd on the annex side. There are actually 13 classes, but one is so small that I am using the count of 12 classes w/ 20 kids per class. If we dump Fridays and plan on serving snack only four days a week, the numbers look better.
The question is how much we can spend per child for our snacks. Harvey Milk is purchasing fruit boxes for every classroom at their school. The boxes are delivered daily and the cost is 75 cents per child per day. This is expensive, but there is a convenience factor of having the food delivered daily.
If we were to use these fruit boxes four days a week the cost would be $24,440 a year which is about ten grand over the grant. Serving the boxes only three days a week would come to $19,440, which is still about $5000 over the grant amount.
We can investigate cheaper alternatives and give up the convenience factor. However, if we do this we must be prepared to take on the work of shopping and delivering the food to the school. Let's not forget while considering options that we will be depending on parent volunteers to come in and help prep the snack every day it is served. We should be realistic about how much we as families can extend ourselves.
Please post any feedback or ideas you have on this. Time is a factor.
thanx!
margie
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