Two schools in New York are the latest recipients of donated salad bars. The two Newburgh-area schools are now part of a national effort supported by First Lady Michelle Obama to help kids make healthy choices.
Those are students at the Vails Gate Elementary High Tech Magnet School in New Windsor, one of 12 schools in the Newburgh Enlarged City School District in Orange County. Vails Gate along with the district’s Newburgh Free Academy are the recipients of salad bars donated as part of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools initiative. The program supports First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative to end childhood obesity in a generation. Ebony Green is Vails Gate’s principal. She says 600 students in her kindergarten through fifth grade school will eat from the salad bar.
Anthony Grice is grants development assistant for the Newburgh Enlarged City School District. He says his department’s goal is to ensure grants are focused on student achievement.
He says he plans to write a few more grants, with the goal of getting salad bars into all of the district’s schools. He notes South Middle School already has a salad bar.
Turbana Corporation is a grower-owned, banana importer based in Coral Gables, Florida. Turbana and Price Chopper teamed up to work with the nonprofit United Fresh Produce Association Foundation, one of the founding partners of Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools, to donate the salad bars to the two Newburgh schools. Juan Alarcon is CEO of Turbana.
Andrew Marshall is policy and grassroots manager of United Fresh Produce Association.
He says any school, public or private, participating in the National School Lunch Program may apply for a Let's Move Salad Bars to Schools grant. He says schools with the greatest need take priority.
Salad bars were also donated to two schools in Keene, New Hampshire for this school year. First Lady Michelle Obama kicked off the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools program in November 2010, at an elementary school in Miami. To date, nearly 2,700 salad bars have been donated to schools across the country, including 140 in New York.
