We share his sentiment and applaud the recommendations and awareness brought to this issue by FRAC.  We all have to do what we can – program by program – to increase summer participation levels. In its effort to help end childhood hunger, the got breakfast? Foundation last week awarded Silent Hero Grants to organizations to create, support and expand Summer Nutrition Programs. Take a look at this year’s winners and see what kind of an impact a single program can have.

 Lincoln-Lancaster County Health Department

The Lincoln Lancaster County Health Department has coordinated the SFSP in the city of Lincoln, Nebraska for 30 years.  According to grant recipient Michael Heyl, they generally operate between 30-34 sites for 10 weeks every summer.  They have grown from 32,000 meals per summer to almost 100,000 meals per summer in less than 9 years!  The Department partners with community centers, park and recreation centers, summer school programs, cultural centers, churches, and the Salvation Army to provide food to the children in their programs.  They provide breakfasts and lunches to 90% of our sites with the other 10% providing just lunches.

 East Texas Food Bank

Texas has the second highest rate of food insecurity in the nation among children under 18, and nearly 1 in 4 Texas children is at risk of hunger. To combat this issue, The East Texas Food Bank in Tyler, Texas, launched the Summer Food Service Program in 2005, which serves free breakfasts and lunches to children in economically depressed areas. According to grant recipient John Benedetti, they served 16,000 meals at 13 sites in the first year of the program. Since that time the program has grown to 53 sites across 15 counties and will likely serve more than 200,000 meals in 2011!  In addition to serving free breakfasts and lunches, the Food Bank also plans an enrichment program to help attract children to the sites and encourage them to return. This includes sports activities, nutrition education games and lessons, team-building exercises, and other recreational activities.

As part of this new Breakfast First Initiative, 21 schools in the state will get breakfast makeovers, and our own Breakfast BREAKS will be on the menu in many locations.  Although all schools in Maryland are required to serve breakfast, the focus of the new Initiative now is on alternate site breakfast programs – thus, Breakfast BREAKS is the ideal grab ‘n go solution.

Read the news article about this First Class Breakfast Initiative and view the video School Breakfast in Maryland – No Kid Hungry,  produced by Share Our Strength.  In the video, Share Our Strength, the Maryland Governor’s Office for Children, along with students, teachers, administrators, and nursing staff at Elmwood Elementary school share their experience about a School Breakfast program that’s working in their school.

LOUISIANA  SCHOOLS LEARN BENEFITS OF CLASSROOM BREAKFAST
AT “FEEDING THE FUTURE OF AMERICA” PROGRAM

Woodbury, NY, March 29, 2011 – Representatives from a dozen school systems throughout Louisiana were in attendance at the “Feeding the Future of America” Program recently in New Orleans.  In an effort to help feed hungry children, the purpose of the event was to teach schools how to increase school breakfast participation by offering Breakfast in Classroom Programs and Alternate Site Programs.

Hosted by E S Foods of Woodbury, NY, and Choice Foods of New Orleans, Louisiana, the event was held on February 22. Among the guests was Dickie Brennan from Brennan’s Restaurants, who attended on behalf of the Mayor’s Office.  Brennan is actively involved in anti-hunger advocacy in New Orleans.

Speakers included New Orleans born and raised Tony Geraci, chef and Baltimore City Schools Child Nutrition Supervisor, and Cecelia Enault, LDN, RD, the Lead Coordinator of Child Nutrition for Jefferson Parish Public Schools in Marrero, Louisiana, where she oversees the operations to serve 13,000 breakfasts and 29,600 lunch meals daily.

Enault shared with attendees her Breakfast in the Classroom Pilot Program which just launched that very week.  As a result of a Silent Hero Grant her district received last year from the got breakfast? Foundation, eight schools in Jefferson Parish were about to take part in the study.

Today, Enault reports promising results. “Our program began during the week of February 21, 2011, with 2-3 schools starting each day. Average Daily Participation (ADP) in the eight pilot schools was 45% of attendance when the program began, or about 1575 students. Currently it is estimated at 85%,” said Enault.  On average, participation has increased by 94% in the schools since the program began and averages 3055 students daily. “Comments from principals, students, and teachers have been largely positive. If the financials validate our estimates, we plan to bring the program to additional schools in the fall of 2011.”

Geraci also discussed the benefits of Universal School Programs.  In Baltimore, he implemented successful Classroom Breakfast and Alternate Site Programs throughout the city-wide school district.  As a result, he was able to increase breakfast participation from 8,500 meals per day to 45,000 meals per day.

These results were no surprise to event host E S Foods, as the company has been working hard to get the message out that Classroom Breakfast is a solution to many of the challenges schools face in offering a breakfast program.  Its flagship brand, Breakfast BREAKS, is a shelf-stable, convenient grab ‘n go meal in eco-friendly packaging – ideally suited for classroom breakfasts.  According to the Food Research and Action Center’s School Breakfast Scorecard for 2009-2010, serving Breakfast in the Classroom is a key strategy for increasing participation rates.

The event leaders from the “Feeding the Future of America” program also went to several different schools to help them on their first day of Breakfast in the Classroom. “Kids loved it and participation went way up,” says Luis Santiago, Vice President of Sales, E S Foods.  “One school went from feeding 150 kids to over 400.”

E S Foods, headquartered in Woodbury, New York, is dedicated to providing nutritious, value-added, “kid-friendly” foods for America’s school children.  For more information, visit www.esfoods.com.

RELEASE
got breakfast? Foundation Presents “Silent Hero Performance Award” to Buffalo Public Schools for its Classroom Breakfast Program

Buffalo, NY, November 12, 2010 — Today the got breakfast? Foundation presented its first-ever “Silent Hero Performance Award” to Buffalo Public Schools in New York in recognition of their achievement in implementing a successful Breakfast in the Classroom program. In addition, the Foundation also presented them with a grant for $5,000.

 The award was presented to Bridget O’ Brien Wood, Director of Foodservice for Buffalo Public Schools, during morning classroom breakfast at Charles R. Drew Science Magnet School. By adding Breakfast in the Classroom this past year, Buffalo Public Schools have seen an increase in participation by 3,000 students per day.  With 831 classrooms serving breakfast at 28 sites, they have an average daily participation of 21,500 students who now start their day with a nutritious breakfast.

 ”Our district is thrilled to be servicing so many more children each and every day. The success of this program was due to the incredible collaboration between the administration, instructional , engineering and food service staffs in each school,” says Wood. “Additionally, there was a great deal of support from the American Dairy Council and E S Foods to get this initiative off the ground.  We hope to use this grant award to expand the program.” 

“Buffalo Public Schools serve as a great example of how Breakfast in the Classroom can work.  We wanted to spotlight their program as a model for other schools and to reward them for the difference they’ve made in children’s lives by making school breakfast accessible,” says Sonya Kaster, R.D., L.D.N., S.N.S., Grant Administrator for the got breakfast? Silent Hero Grant Program.

Currently, each day nearly 19 million low-income children participate in the National School Lunch Program while only about 9 million participate in the School Breakfast Program. Serving breakfast in the classroom instead of in the cafeteria is among the best options to overcome challenges such as time constraints and staffing issue when offering school breakfast.

 The got breakfast? Foundation and its Silent Hero Grant Program were created to encourage schools and non-profit organizations to expand the reach of underutilized child nutrition programs.  For more information about the got breakfast? Foundation,  visit the www.gotbreakfast.org website or contact  infor@gotbreakfast.org.

Serving breakfasts, lunches and/or snacks 5 times per week, Helen said they served our Breakfast BREAKS once per week and Meal BREAKS once every two weeks for lunch — becoming definite fans of these pre-packaged, convenient, grab ‘n go solutions.. Since the majority of the children in their large district qualify for free or reduced priced meals, many of these children would not have had breakfast or lunch without the Summer Feeding Program. “It’s a lot of work but very rewarding to feed all these children in need in our communities,” said Helen.

Also, as part of the district’s participation in the Hunger Task Force, the United Way of Southwest Florida presented Food Service with a plaque at a recent School Board meeting. The plaque was given “in recognition of the commitment to caring for our community’s children and feeding those in need during Summer 2010.”

This school year is the first year for Lee County Schools to offer universal school breakfast in all its elementary and secondary schools.  The district has over 80,000 students enrolled in 87 schools.  Helen said the schools are currently using both Classroom Breakfasts and traditional cafeteria breakfasts, depending on the school, and they have already seen a 31% increase in breakfast participation! They serve 23,000 breakfasts each day, and our new eco-friendly pouch Breakfast BREAKS will be on the menu! We will follow up with Helen later in the year to see how the universal breakfast program grows. Congrats to Helen and her district for feeding thousands of hungry children throughout the year!

Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County in California Awarded Silent Hero Summer Grant from got breakfast?® Foundation

Woodbury, NY, June 23, 2010 – The  got breakfast?® Foundation recently awarded the Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County in Irvine, California, one of eight Silent Hero grants.  The grants were available to public schools, non-profit private schools, local governments, youth sports programs or 501c(3) non-profit organizations that participate in the federal Summer Nutrition Program. Second Harvest’s Summer Food Program provides meals five days a week to over 3,000 children through 35 sites.

“The major challenge Second Harvest is facing this summer is the increased number of children living in poverty. Currently, in Orange County 43% of our public school children rely on the Free and Reduced-Price Lunch Program as a steady source of food security and nutrition,” explains grant recipient Joe Schoeningh, Director.  The $5,000 award will be used to help pilot Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County’s Missing Meals program. 

 Missing Meals is designed to compensate for the operational limitations of Summer Food sites and ensure children are able to start the day with a healthy breakfast.

“Some of the Summer Food Program sites are not able to open before 10:00 a.m. and therefore do not qualify for a reimbursable breakfast,” says Schoeningh. “The Missing Meals program addresses this issue by sending Good Morning Gear kits home in a backpack with the child that has nutritious breakfast items for the week.”

“We were impressed by the creativity and thoroughness of the research that went into developing the Missing Meals program,” says Sonya Kaster, R.D., L.D.N., S.N.S., Grant Administrator for the Silent Hero Program.  

Once summer starts and the school breakfasts and lunches have stopped, millions more low-income children go hungry each day.  According to the 2008-2009 report Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation, issued by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), of the 17 million low income children participating in school lunch, only three million were reached in the 2008 summer feeding program.  The federal Summer Nutrition Programs are designed to fill the need of hungry children when schools are on vacation.

The Foundation received hundreds of applications from across the U.S. The winning entrants demonstrated need, creativity and practicality of implementing their summer feeding programs.

The mission of the got breakfast? Foundation is to ensure that every child, regardless of background, starts the day with a nutritious breakfast in order to learn, grow and develop to his or her fullest potential. 

Since 1983, Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County has provided more than 265 million pounds of safe and nutritious surplus food to now over 450 charitable non-profit organizations throughout Orange County. For more information about Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County or to learn how to help, visit www.feedoc.org

For information about the got breakfast? Silent Hero Grant Program contact info@gotbreakfast.org or visit the www.gotbreakfast.org website.

One great case in point:  Windsor Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina. Our Regional Director of Sales in the Southeast, Michael S. McDonald, noted that this customer of ours has quite a success story to share.  Once implementing their Breakfast in the Classroom program, participation more than doubled, from 253 students up to 568!  The principal reports reduced tardiness and absences as well. They hope to expand this program to other schools in the Richland School District #2.  Check out their Breakfast in the Classroom “Room Service” video success story featured on ABC News in Columbia.