Tempe School District Receives $180,000 Grant To Bring Healthy School Meals To Students
Posted: April 9, 2018 in Chains
Life Time Foundation
TEMPE, AZ – Nearly 11,500 students in the Tempe Elementary School District will benefit from a recent $180,000 grant to help all students receive fresh, scratch-cooked, healthy meals at school by transforming school food operations in Tempe. The three-year grant, part of the School Food Support Initiative (SFSI), is funded by the Life Time Foundation and in partnership with the Chef Ann Foundation and Whole Kids Foundation. It will provide the Tempe Elementary School District with direct support from Chefs Ann Cooper and Beth Collins, as well as fellow school food service experts, to ensure all ingredients offered on Tempe’s school menu are of the highest quality standards.
Tempe will directly benefit from on-site assessments of the district’s current operations, a systems assistance grant for equipment or other school food program needs, technical assistance, and strategic planning to provide healthier school meals. Collectively, all of these tools will ensure that students at Tempe School District will continue to enjoy their favorite meals filled with natural, wholesome foods that promote a healthy way of life, as well as help to develop effective, lifelong habits.
“We are thrilled to receive this much-needed grant as a means to accelerate our initiatives to offer even more wholesome and healthier options for our students,” said Tempe Elementary Nutrition Services Supervisor Emma Kitzman. “We are focused on reducing artificial and processed ingredients from our menu, adding salad bars to our elementary schools, and preparing bulk produce in our central kitchen facility. This experience has far exceeded our expectations and we are confident that our students will benefit greatly.”
Tempe is one member of a cohort of seven districts throughout the United States working to innovate and improve their school food choices through SFSI. Cohort districts learn from their common experiences while working to eliminate artificial ingredients as they transition to cook-from-scratch school food operations.
Life Time Foundation is a public charity founded by Life Time, the nation’s only Healthy Way of Life brand, which operates five athletic resorts in the greater Tempe and Phoenix region. Since 2010, the Life Time Foundation has been on a mission to partner with school districts to eliminate processed, artificial, and unhealthy food and ingredients from school meals, impacting more than 37 million meals nationwide and counting.
