And the benefits don’t stop there.  Salad bars give kids a choice. A healthy choice.  In the school setting kids are more apt to explore foods they haven’t tried before — especially if one of their friends or someone they look up to makes a new or different choice.

Whole Kids Foundation™ is incredibly excited to partner with HBO to help kids create lifelong healthy habits.  Every few years HBO profiles a pressing public issue and this spring the topic is obesity in America.  The multi-part The Weight of the Nation series airs on Monday, May 14 and Tuesday May 15, exclusively on HBO with two films airing back-to-back each night starting at 8:00 pm.  Interested? Take a peek at the trailer. The Great Cafeteria Takeover, the first of three documentary films in The Weight of the Nation for Kids series debuts the next day on Wednesday, May 16 at 7:00 pm.

In addition to raising awareness and educating viewers about the obesity epidemic in the US, HBO wanted to do something significant to make a difference.  Realizing that good nutrition is key to a healthy mind and body, they partnered with Whole Kids Foundation to grant 100 salad bars to schools across America by September 2012.

On May 1, HBO and their partners hosted school events in 12 cities to kick off their campaign. Whole Kids Foundation team members joined in by celebrating with a school district who is receiving their very first salad bar (Baltimore, MD) and with another district for which this gift means that all of their schools now have a salad bar (New Haven, CT).  From Philadelphia to Lakewood, Colorado; from New Orleans to New York City, these school salad bars mean that more than 50,000 children will have access to a salad bar 175 days each year!

Tune in to The Weight of the Nation — available on HBO GO and all HBO Platforms.  It’s also available to watch at HBO.com.

For more information about salad bars in schools, including how your school can apply for a grant, visit www.saladbars2schools.org.  Whole Kids Foundation is proud to be a sustaining member of Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools.

Will you be tuning in?

The team members in our stores weren’t the only folks impressed, so were the celebrity judges. And these guys know their stuff! Each store picked one kid/parent cooking team to go on to the finals at the Art Institute’s Culinary School. The three finalists were judged by Paula DaSilva, Executive Chef of 1500° at the Eden Roc Miami Beach; Malka Espinel, Pastry Consultant at The Forge Restaurant and Pastry Instructor at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale; and Marcella Guzman, Chef Instructor at the International Culinary School at The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.

Drum roll, please. And the winners are:

1^st Place: Luca’s Finger Lickin’ Fish Tacos

Team Coral Springs: Luca and his mother Stephanie

2^nd Place: Adzuki Pasta

Team Fort Lauderdale – Ani and her mother Maria

3^rd Place: Great Grand Dad’s Secret “Prohibition” Chili 

Team Plantation: Julia and her grandfather Robert

Congratulations to all the winners. Yes, these dishes did taste as good as they sound. But don’t take our word for it. Try Luca’s winning Healthy Entrée for yourself.

Luca’s Finger Lickin’ Fish Tacos

Fish Tacos

• 3 tilapia filets
• Key lime oil or olive oil
• Borsari seasoning
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 bunch of cilantro
• 3 limes
• 1 package whole wheat tortillas

Kale Salad

• 1 bunch kale
• 1 garlic clove
• 1 avocado
• Borsari seasoning
• 1 lemon

Taco Toppings

• 3 mangoes
• Cut pineapple (optional)
• 1 onion
• 3 avocados
• 1 pre-cut cabbage mix
• 3 tomatoes

Preparation for Fish Tacos:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat glass pan with oil for fish. Coat the fish in key lime oil, garlic (pressed clove) and cilantro. Place in glass pan, squeeze on lime and shake Borsari seasoning. Bake the fish in the oven for approximately 15 minutes, or until it is non-translucent and flakey.

Toppings: Dice onion and tomato, mash avocados, slice mangoes, dice pineapple, and rough cut cabbage mix.

Prep kale: Cut out leaf backbone, rough cut kale. Place kale in bowl. Mash avocado in with kale, pressed garlic clove; add one shake of Borsari seasoning. Squeeze in lemon and mix by hand.

Plating: Once fish is cooked, warm tortillas in oven. Place fish on warm tortilla and top with a bit of the tomatoes, onions, avocado, cabbage and mango.

Side of kale salad: Garnish with dollop of avocado, tomato and mango

 Do you cook with your kids? What’s the winning dish in your home?

I can still remember last fall when I casually stumbled upon Erin Schrode’s Teens Turning Green blog post here on The Whole Story blog. In it she encouraged high school and college-aged students to sign up for the first-ever Project Green Challenge. As I perused the Project Green Challenge website and learned more about this exciting initiative, I figured it would be a fun activity to brighten up the month of October, typically a month of school overload. Little did I know what I was signing myself up for, or how much that decision would change my life forever.

Everything that the Project Green Challenge participants accomplished during that month remains a truly unbelievable feat. From personal challenges of going 100% disposable-free or auditing all of our household cleaning products’ harmful ingredients, to challenges mobilizing us to reach out to fellow students, family, community members, school administrators, government officials and more, Project Green Challenge created a force of young individuals, consumers and citizens who can now effectively advocate for the health of our planet and its inhabitants!

Among my own experiences that month, one of my proudest accomplishments was the emergence of our new community garden at Hopkins. This will be a space for Johns Hopkins students, faculty, staff and community members (especially local school children) to learn, teach and practice environmentally responsible food production methods. We got this project rolling in October with volunteer days, community meetings and more. Thanks to the generous grant provided by Whole Kids Foundation, we can confidently bring this garden to life for the spring 2012 planting season!

The ultimate testimony to the power of Project Green Challenge took place over a December weekend in San Francisco at Green University. This summit brought the 12 finalists from Project Green Challenge together to meet some of the world’s most esteemed eco-business leaders and experts, including Susie Hewson, founder of Natracare, and Debbie Raphael, Director of the California Department of Toxic Substance Control. With the wisdom and expertise imparted to us during their inspirational speeches, and with the help of additional mentors in attendance, all of the finalists worked together to create exciting platforms for change that we’ll carry out over the year!

My experience with Project Green Challenge and Green University will, without a doubt, stand as a defining moment in my life for years to come. It has not only expanded my knowledge of nearly every major environmental issue and introduced me to some of the world’s most inspirational individuals working to combat these issues, but it has also empowered me to act on these issues in creative and effective ways. Ultimately, Project Green Challenge has shown me that simply being a 19-year-old student in a world of 7 billion people is NOT a limiting factor to promoting effective change on our campuses, in our communities and in our world! Anyone can find the time and energy to make a difference if you’re up to the challenge!

Thank you to Judi Shils and Erin Schrode, the amazing mother-daughter partnership who created Teens Turning Green seven years ago; the entire Project Green Challenge team; Natracare, Whole Foods Market and the other amazing Project Green Challenge sponsors; and all of the eco-leaders and mentors for supporting and creating the change they wish to see in the world!

And just my luck, it was pizza day! What’s really great is that in addition to pizza, kids in the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) get to choose from several varieties of fresh fruit (Monday’s selection was sliced oranges, pears and apples) plus they get a trip through their school’s salad bar. Made possible by a grant from Let’s Move! Salad Bars 2 Schools, these salad bars are stocked with foods like corn, peas, kidney beans, mixed greens, carrots, garbanzo beans, cottage cheese and a delicious whole grain salad.

While I was there I chatted with at least three dozen kids from kindergarten through 4th grade, and I can tell you that the kids at Mesa Elementary School are excited about lunch! Despite the skepticism of many adults I meet, I can attest that the kids loaded their trays with veggies from the salad bar. Of course, every kid does it differently. Some piled a little of everything onto their trays while others kept their selections neatly separated. Some even chose a salad to go with their lunches brought from home.

It was also refreshing to see that common sense has prevailed in all sorts of ways under Chef Ann’s direction. Take water, for example. The National School Lunch Program’s new guidelines call for every child to have access to water at lunch. Seems obvious, right? Well, many school cafeterias simply weren’t designed with this thought in mind. Instead of an elaborate or expensive fix, Chef Ann’s team marched to their local sporting goods store and bought a $20 water dispenser for each cafeteria. Problem solved and water at hand!

That water cooler sits right next to a bulk milk dispenser. That’s right, cold organic milk from a soda-style self-serve dispenser. I often hear from school officials with trepidations about children’s ability to serve themselves and then make it to a table with a glass of milk. I assure you, kids can do it! And as a big plus for schools, self-serve dispensers eliminate the waste of cartons and provide the ability to offer organic milk for about the same as the cost of milk in a carton!

So, I simply want to say, “Hats Off!” to Chef Ann, Chef Beth of the Food Family Farming Foundation, the great staff of Mesa Elementary School and all the other committed adults who make a delicious healthy lunch possible for BVSD kids every day.

If you’re wondering why the Whole Kids Foundation is so set on celebrating these “school lunch victories,” it’s because we hope to show parents and those who are passionate about healthy kids what’s possible and maybe even inspire you to get involved with a school near you. Want to find out more? Check out the Whole Kids Foundation website, sign up for our email newsletter, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

Then go have some school lunch and let us know what they’re doing in schools near you.

Just last month the Global Vice Presidents from each department at our corporate office gathered for their own team build and they got their hands dirty. Literally. They spent their morning helping Austin’s Graham Elementary School turn their one-year-old set of eight raised garden beds into the school’s vision of a living classroom.

The work included assembling picnic tables, digging, installing drip irrigation in existing beds, weeding, creating two new limestone raised beds, digging, mulching walkways and digging. Lots of digging!

Graham Elementary is pretty special. A few years ago the school was rated “acceptable” by state standards. But with the creativity and passion of the school’s faculty, lead by principal Blaine Helwig, the school has celebrated an “exemplary” rating for the last three years! They intend to continue this progress by implementing experiential learning — like that of the living classroom.

What makes Graham’s garden tick is the fact that the entire community is a part of the effort. For example, a couple of years ago two local non-profits, the Sustainable Food Center and Marathon Kids, partnered with the school to create a wellness team made up of parents, teachers and community members. And all of these groups showed up to help out as this first stage of garden transformation took place.

According to master gardener Margaret Earnest, who insists she’s “just a volunteer,” the kids are learning all sorts of things in the garden including science and botany. “We just don’t tell them that,” she says. Margaret also leads the school’s 4^th and 5^th grade weekly after-school garden club which has a membership of over 50 kids this year! The day our group was there the club was releasing worms into the compost pile.

The garden at Graham is just one component of an even broader health effort at the school, which also features participation in Sustainable Food Center’s Sprouting Healthy Kids farm to school program and their Happy Kitchen cooking classes for parents. As well as Marathon Kids physical activity program – all led by members of the Graham school-community.

The formula for success developed at Graham can work for just about any school:

• find a couple of people who have deep passion and expertise
• find even more people who are willing to learn and support
• create a vision, a plan and implement it in phases
• believe in the genius of our children
• unleash their spirit

Our hats off to Graham and their supporters for their commitment to their kids, to our Whole Foods Market leaders who (literally) dug in to this worthy cause in their community and to all the communities everywhere where school gardens are teaching life lessons. See how you can help school gardens grow by visiting the Whole Kids Foundation website.

What could be more fun than voting on mouthwatering recipes for a good cause? Here’s a sampling of a few of the recipes you’ll have a chance to vote on:

So visit YumSugar and cast your vote for your favorite holiday recipes and sign up for their newsletter for a chance to win a $1,000 Whole Foods Market gift card. And tell us, what are some of your favorite things to cook up for Thanksgiving dinner?

For many of us of a certain generation, “cabbage patch” conjures up a mental picture of a well-loved doll. But for the generation of students attending Barnard Environmental Studies Magnet School in New Haven, Connecticut, it means something completely different. Just take a look at their cabbage patch! I was lucky enough to see this cabbage patch in person earlier this month when Whole Kids Foundation helped the New Haven Public Schools officials and students celebrate the opening of 33 new salad bars in the district’s schools. Remember our Salad Bar Project fundraising campaign last year? This is the great work that your donations are funding!

Although New Haven is home to the prestigious Yale University, New Haven Public Schools actually serves the largest concentration of food deserts in that part of the country. Food deserts are low-income neighborhoods with large populations and no nearby grocery stores. That means the families who live in these neighborhoods don’t have regular and easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s no wonder the kids get excited about the new seasonal selections on their schools’ salad bars.

Barnard is truly an example of how school gardens, salad bars and nutrition education all work together to create a healthy future for kids! While I was there, the students recruited Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, who also attended the celebration, to learn how to harvest potatoes. They explained that they had planted the potatoes in the spring and since the plants had died back it was now time to dig them out. And that they did — beaming with pride at their harvest!

The spirit behind real food in the New Haven public schools is Chef Tim Cipriano, the Executive Director of Food Service. Initially, Chef Tim thought that composed salads were the way to boost fruit and veggie consumption in his schools. Then he heard the stories of success that come from offering kids choices and the freedom to make their own salads. Following the success of a handful of school salad bars in his district, Chef Tim was ecstatic to receive the grant from Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools for 33 more!

And to all the adults in the world who are certain that kids won’t eat veggies, Tim says: “Give them a chance!” Barnard Principal Michael Crocco now has a crew of 600 veggie-strong kids. They were each challenged to make a rainbow on their plate, following the idea that eating a variety of colorful foods provides a full range of nutrients that your body uses to grow and be well. The kids were not shy about tasting new things and filling their trays with seasonal selections.

With courageous leadership and dedication like that in New Haven, the future looks very bright for a generation of kids who will defy the gloomy health trends reported on a daily basis.

Whole Kids Foundation is certainly proud to support their efforts. If you’re interested in either donating money to help put salad bars in schools or would like to apply for grants to put salad bars in your own area schools, visit saladbars2schools.org. Also, The Lunch Box has lots of practical resources for schools seeking to implement healthier school lunches, including resources for salad bars like this downloadable Rainbow Day Packet that encourages kids to eat a rainbow.

How do you inspire kids to “eat a rainbow?” We’d love to hear your tips.

If you’re a fan of Jamie Oliver’s School Food Revolution, you might recognize the name: Mud Baron. He’s the former Green Policy Director for the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). Like his name implies, Mud is the epitome of garden passion. A flower farmer by trade, he can usually be found with pruners strapped to his hip and a seed plug tray under his arm.  Mud knows both teachers and kids by name.

After meeting Mud and a couple of the teachers who are incorporating their school gardens into their schools’ culinary programs, I was invited to take a closer look at the work they were doing. Remarkably, LAUSD has more than 500 schools with gardens and it is possible for a student to go from kindergarten to graduation with access to a school garden at every campus.

I was lucky enough to spend half of a Saturday with Mud — now a volunteer for the district — at The Christensen Math, Science & Technology Center. The name is a little deceiving. This four-acre plot, located in San Pedro amidst a neighborhood and the harbor, is a teaching center for the district. It hosts more than 50,000 students on field trips each year. On a typical visit, students split into groups. While one group learns about the important role that animals play in agriculture, the other group tours, and even works, in the gardens.

The center is home to a couple of dozen chickens, a handful of ducks, a big turkey, Ophelia the 400 lb pig and Peaches the pony — most rescued from city life after their owners determined they were unable to care for them. In the gardens, students learn the difference between the rows that are planted for human consumption — herbs, vegetables and fruit trees — and rows planted as food for pollinators. Mud has a soft spot for dahlias. He says the flowers serve two purposes. One, they feed the bees, dragonflies and hummingbirds that are vital to the garden’s success and, two, they open doors…when garden supporters take beautiful bouquets to council members, teachers and community advocates.

Beyond inspiring students with visits to the model gardens, the center also supplies schools with seeds and starter plants for their own gardens. Mud is unapologetic that his support and that of the center reach beyond LAUSD. The center is known for providing seeds and starters to other surrounding school districts and even community gardens.

“What sucked me into this work was when I realized that the first teacher I helped wasn’t alone,” Mud revealed to me on my visit. “There were so many more teachers that needed encouragement, tools and a little expertise to be successful with their gardens.” It’s this spirit of collaboration and dedication to helping children understand where their food comes from, that energizes Whole Kids Foundation’s support for school gardens. Remember:

Kids who grow good food, eat good food.
Kids who cook good food, eat good food.

If you want to keep up with Mud, you can follow him on twitter @cocoxochitl.

You can get more information on how to help school gardens grow and how to grow a garden for your school on the Whole Kids Foundation website. And follow Whole Kids Foundation on Twitter and Facebook.

Did you garden when you were a kid? Tell me about your experience.

In the past six weeks since we announced the Whole Kids Foundation, we have been overwhelmed by kind gestures. People from all over have reached out to volunteer, offer ideas, share their stories and many of our suppliers have reached out to help. One of these suppliers is KIND, the company that makes those amazing fruit and nut bars. They invited us to partner with them on their Do the KIND Thing movement. This initiative gives people the opportunity to turn one small act of kindness into a BIG difference.

This is how it works: on the first Tuesday of each month, everyone carries out the same KINDING Mission. It’s that simple! This month KIND is asking you to pass along a book or magazine you’ve enjoyed to someone who you think will enjoy it too. We think teachers, schools and libraries are great choices…but it could also be a friend, neighbor or co-worker.

If enough people sign up on their website and complete the KIND act, KIND will do an even bigger KIND Act and fund several Whole Kids Foundation School Garden Grants! That’s hundreds of students who will have an opportunity to experience growing a garden (many for the first time!) all because you were kind enough to pass on a book or magazine on the first Tuesday in September.

If you would like to accept the KIND mission and make your kindness count, sign up on KIND’s website. (FYI, to sign up you give them your name and email address so they can send you their enewsletter.)

This parting thought from the founder and CEO of KIND, Daniel Lubetzky, will help you understand their outlook on KINDness!

“At KIND, we like to say ‘it’s usually the nuts that change the world’ and in recent years we’ve found that our community is equally as inspired by that ideology. With Do the KIND Thing, we are seeking to harness that collective passion in an authentic and altruistic manner to make a positive impact in our world.”

Who do you plan on sharing a book with this month? Are there other small acts of kindness that you enjoy doing for others?

You, our customers, are seriously amazing! In just a little over two weeks, you’ve donated over $700,000 to help support School Garden Grants. Tell your friends and family and let’s keep those donations coming! Donations are accepted online or at checkout in your local store. The more we raise, the more we can help grow school gardens.

If you missed our earlier post about how school gardens help kids develop healthier eating habits, here’s an encore of that info.

In partnership with FoodCorps, Whole Kids Foundation will grant 1000 schools $2000 each to build or expand their school garden.

To kids (and many adults!), gardens are magical places where they can see things come to life. Experiencing that process for themselves helps kids understand that food comes from plants, and not out of a box or off a truck. With that in mind, the goal of the garden grant program is to support schools wanting to establish or grow their gardening programs so they can offer their students the great experience of gardening.

School gardens help children develop a deep understanding of the connection between healthy eating and a healthy body. Like anyone who gardens, kids are proud of the fruits of their labor and are more apt to eat the fresh veggies they’ve grown. School gardens also offer an opportunity to integrate math, science and health curriculum into a dynamic, interactive setting. Plus, teaching kids to garden helps them learn about complex topics like sustainability and conservation, food systems and community awareness.

If you’re interested in getting a garden in your local school and want to find out more about the online application process, visit the Whole Kids Foundation School Garden Grant Program page for a downloadable PDF with complete grant information.

Did you have a garden as a kid? Tell us about it!