Author: Tammy Lane • First Posted: Friday, January 08, 2010

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A kindergartener picks up his class' basket of carrots after lunch at Arlington Elementary. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, cafeteria staffs fill baskets with individual servings of a fresh fruit or vegetable snack.

Thanks to an expanded federal program, youngsters at nine Fayette County schools are receiving a fresh fruit or vegetable for a healthy snack every Tuesday and Thursday. The goal is to encourage children to try different foods and to eat more of their favorites.

Some snacks are familiar, like apples and grapes. Other times it might be a new adventure, as with kiwi, winter squash and mangos.

Jasmine Rowe, a fifth-grader at Harrison Elementary, liked the baby carrots and celery best – maybe because they came with Ranch dressing for dipping.

The snacks have been a hit across the district – well, mostly.

“They weren’t big on the cauliflower because they couldn’t get over the smell,” said Sherry Spurlock, cafeteria manager at Arlington Elementary.

At the participating schools, the cafeteria staffs fill bushel baskets with individual servings of the day’s bounty. Each class has its own basket, and students take their fruits and vegetables back to their rooms after lunch.

“Sometimes we have a few extras, and I’ll put it out, and the next day they’ll get it,” said Spurlock, who has also noticed youngsters selecting more fresh fruit in the lunch line since discovering tastes they like.

Lynn Smith, the morning cook at Harrison Elementary, said the primary students there try everything. “It’s been really cool to see how excited they get,” she said.

And for older children who eat an early lunch, the snacks provide a pick-me-up. “It’s given them so much energy in the afternoon when they were dragging down,” Smith said.

Francisco Paredes, a fifth-grader at Arlington who was partial to the fragrant tangerines, has welcomed the boost. “When we’re at recess, we get tired. Then we eat some snacks to help us calm down and get back to work,” he said.

The Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Snack Program has provided teaching moments as well.

Aaron Pauley took the opportunity to introduce the food groups to his kindergarten class at Harrison. His students also decorated their bushel basket, wrapping it in black-and-white checkerboard and pasting on colorful race cars with names like “math” and “science.”

At Arlington, first-grade teacher Eric Snyder has also incorporated the snacks in his classroom. “When we have grapes or anything we can count, we’ll do that with them,” he said.

And after his youngsters visited an apple orchard, they went with that theme on their bushel basket – depicting the life cycle of an apple, from seed to tree through the seasons.

Snyder said the federal program has opened a door for some of his students.

“It’s giving those kids a taste of something they’ve never had and showing them that even though it’s healthy, it can be a good snack,” he said.

Archived news release about FCPS participants in 2009-2010