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Healthy School Meals That Are Also Tasty? Springfield, Mass., Gives It A Try

The first thing second graders saw this spring when they walked through the classroom door at Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts, was a table loaded with juice and milk cartons.

There was chopped pineapple in cups, a variety of cereal boxes, and — straight from the chefs at the city’s recently opened culinary and nutrition center — a warm ham-and-cheese sandwich on a freshly-baked Hawaiian roll.

It’s called Breakfast in the Classroom, a program that’s made a huge reduction in what was formerly a common occurrence in Springfield: hunger visits to school nurses.

Breakfast is now served in every classroom in the district, including the high schools.

The program feeds more kids, and it reduces stigma in a city where over 75 percent of public school children are, by official state measures, economically disadvantaged.

“Every student’s entitled to a free breakfast, so it doesn’t matter what their economic status is,” said Lisa Bakowski, principal at Boland Elementary. “Every child gets a breakfast.”

All Springfield students also receive free lunch, and some students take home non-perishable foods during weekends and summer as well.

Bakowski herself attended Springfield schools as a child.

“You know, I was a free breakfast kid, and I did feel a little funny with all those free lunch tickets that I had to turn in every day,” she said. “For our kids, that’s not happening. Everybody gets the same.”

Breakfast in the Classroom is one of several initiatives Springfield has made to reduce hunger and improve nutrition among its 25,000 public school students. Another is the city’s new $21 million culinary and nutrition center, located on Cadwell Drive.

The ham-and-cheese sandwich on a Hawaiian roll was made from scratch at the culinary center.  

“It’s good,” said second grader Gabriel Pacheco of the sandwich. “It tastes like it’s flavory.”

Gabriel Pacheco, eating breakfast, is a second grader at Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Credit Ben James / NEPR
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NEPR
Gabriel Pacheco, eating breakfast, is a second grader at Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Zadrian Navarro, eating a ham-and-cheese sandwich, is a second grader at Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Credit Ben James / NEPR
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NEPR
Zadrian Navarro, eating a ham-and-cheese sandwich, is a second grader at Boland Elementary School in Springfield, Massachusetts.

Zadrian Navarro, another second grader, liked the sandwich, too.

“It was so good, and it tasted good and the bread was soft,” he said.

Students at Boland participated in taste tests all year, initiated by chefs at the culinary center.

Zadrian was also excited about the vegetable garden his class planted at their school.

“It was so fun, because we get to water it, and we get to plant it,” Zadrian said. “Carrots, tomatoes, and lettuce.”

Kali Ransom, a FoodCorps AmeriCorps volunteer, is in charge of the garden program at Boland and other schools. Part of her job is to help kids get interested in new foods.

“You can’t just go in and be like, ‘Hey, try this thing, and be excited about it,’ when they’re tired, and they don’t have energy,” she said. “You have to build those relationships, and show them they can trust you and open up to you, and it will go from there.”  

From left, Abby Getman, Sodexo consultant; and Kali Ransom, Juniper Blakeman, and Nicholas Kooyomjian, all AmeriCorps service members in the FoodCorps program. They plant gardens and teach nutrition in elementary schools in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Credit Ben James / NEPR
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NEPR
From left, Abby Getman, Sodexo consultant; and Kali Ransom, Juniper Blakeman, and Nicholas Kooyomjian, all AmeriCorps service members in the FoodCorps program. They plant gardens and teach nutrition in elementary schools in Springfield, Massachusetts.

But not all of Ransom’s students are thrilled about the sandwiches, muffins and other new foods from the culinary center.

One doubter is Schneider Gonzalez Morales, who said he’s all about cereal.

“Cereal — and, like, only milk,” he said.

Schneider chose to skip the ham-and-cheese sandwich.

“I don’t like the yellow cheese that much, and I don’t like the meat that much,” he said.

Back in 2014, First Lady Michelle Obama got a lot of flak for trying to make school lunches more nutritious. The sudden menu changes led to reports of the new, healthier foods ending up in the trash.

In Springfield, school officials are taking the long game toward changing kids’ eating habits.

Pat Roach is the district’s CFO.

“We have a big opportunity here to reach these kids,” Roach said, “and if we’re giving them healthier foods in school, and we’re introducing them to fruits and vegetables, that’s going to change their eating habits for the rest of their life.”

Roach was instrumental in figuring out how to finance the new culinary center, which also serves Springfield’s charter and parochial schools. It’s a partnership with the multinational food service provider Sodexo.

Egg sandwiches ready to be packaged at the $21 million culinary facility in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Credit Ben James / NEPR
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NEPR
Egg sandwiches ready to be packaged at the $21 million culinary facility in Springfield, Massachusetts.

The city purchased the building on bond and developed the new kitchen using USDA grants. The school department now pays the city rent using a portion of the federal money it receives for each meal it serves to students.

“We get the exact same reimbursement as Boston and Worcester and all the other cities,” Roach said. “We don’t get any different money than anybody else.”

But Springfield is trying to use that money more efficiently. At the new facility, produce purchased from local farms is processed by the truckload. There’s a machine that can peel a melon in five seconds. And they make tomato sauce 800 gallons at a time.

“We have the eight-piece chicken with sazon,” said Andrew Hall, lead chef at the culinary center. “After it gets cooked, we put fresh sofrito in them. They get Cryovaced. They get sent to the schools. They reheat them there.”

Sofrito is the base for many Puerto Rican home-cooked meals.

Delia Jimenez, at left, is a cook at the Sodexo-operated culinary facility in Springfield, Massachusetts. Andrew Hall, at right, is lead chef at the facility.
Credit Ben James / NEPR
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NEPR
Delia Jimenez, at left, is a cook at the Sodexo-operated culinary facility in Springfield, Massachusetts. Andrew Hall, at right, is lead chef at the facility.

Liz O’Gilvie, chair of the Springfield Food Policy Council, said the taste tests and the new recipes show the district cares about the food preferences of its students. And that, she said, is about a lot more than nutrition.

“What that does is it changes how people think their city feels about them,” she said at the ribbon-cutting for the new kitchen in April. “It changes the possibility in their minds of what can change, and it changes the possibility of their lives.”

Ransom, the AmeriCorps volunteer at Boland, asked student Schneider if he tried the pineapple muffins served earlier in the week. The answer was no.

“Have you tried the granola and the strawberries? No? OK, I was just wondering,” Ransom said.

But food from the school garden? That’s another matter.

When asked whether he’ll try one of the radishes or rainbow carrots he planted himself, Scheider stopped and thought for a moment, before answering yes.

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