Dade School Cafeteria Workers Hit The Books For Healthier Food
MIAMI (CBS4) - Hundreds of part-time Miami-Dade County Public Schools food service employees have gotten a crash course on healthier food.
"This is the first time I am taking this course, I think it is very important because I am the cook at American Senior High," said Pamela Burke.
During a session at Doral Middle School food service workers were eager to learn all they could about the latest 'farm to school' program, about the proper cleaning of fruits and vegetables and most importantly the importance of eating healthy so they could spread the word.
"The goal of this training is to educate and motivate part-time food service employees so when they go back to their kitchens in August they will be able to share that information not only with their colleagues but also with the students," said Wanda Pedraza food service director for MDCPS.
The day's session kicked off with a video message from First Lady Michelle Obama who spoek about the importance of gardens in schools.
Erin Healy, who heads the "farms to schools" program, then spoke to the gathering about the importance of bringing locally grown fruits and vegetables from the farms to the schools.
"Sometimes in these trainings we do tastings so the employees could actually taste the fruit of veggie and tell the students all about it," said Healy.
School officials believe the best way to reach the students is by getting them to connect with the food service workers who they believe are the gatekeepers of this important health initiative for lunch program at schools.
"When students are up in line they could make suggestions; fish, fruits and veggies and for instance if they are not taking a fruit they could say 'Would you like to try this new fruit, I tried it and liked it, maybe you would too'," said Pedraza.
This course has not been taught in Miami-Dade in the last six years, but school officials thought that it was so important they managed to allocate the money this year. More than 1,500 part time food service employees enrolled in the course which was taught at several school throughout the county.
