This is National School Lunch Week and the Natrona County School District is a participant in the National School Lunch Program. Mike Pyska, food service manager with the school district, says the theme this year is "Let's grow healthy."

Wholesome food programs:

"Some of the other programs that my department takes care of is we provide a snack to all our preschool kids every day through another program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, so all our preschoolers get snacks."

Mr. Pyska says some of these food service programs demonstrate how important the nutrition opportunity is for some of the kids, such as Totes of Hope, which prepares daypacks of food to tide kids over during the weekends.

Fresh fruit and vegetable grant:

"Another good program that we make sure that these kids are getting good nutrition in the elementary schools is our fresh fruit and vegetable grant. This year we have 19 elementary schools that every day the students are getting a fresh serving of fruits and vegetables."

As far as any changes in cafeterias for National School Lunch Week, Mr. Pyska says the promotional aspect is good, but they take feeding the school district's kids more seriously than that.

School kids need food all year:

"To me, it seems kind of a farce to change your menu and not be able to do that for the whole school year, so rather than dress up one week, we try and make our menus as attractive as we can all year long and want our children to come in and eat."

 

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