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School has an appetite for lunch program

The salad bar program at Similkameen Elementary Secondary School was recently recognized a province wide basis

 

The salad bar program at Similkameen Elementary Secondary School was recently recognized as the only full salad bar program to be offered on a daily basis in all B.C. schools.

The school’s program is operated through Interior Health, with a mandate to encourage healthier eating amongst the province’s school kids. It also serves as a mechanism to bring in more local produce to school cafeterias.

“This is our first year for the program,” said Sherry Philpott-Adhikary, Cafeteria Training teacher at SESS.

 

“We used to operate the cafeteria with two CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) workers, but now that it is a training class we staff it with 22 students and two CUPE helpers.”

Philpott - Adhikary described the school menu as containing fresh, made from scratch soups accompanied by an entre or a sandwich taking the form of a wrap, bun, pita or kaiser roll. The school’s salad bar, which was donated, contains such items as romaine lettuce and two other salads that could take the form of Greek, potato, cole slaw, bean, cous-cous, or rice, in addition to toppings ranging from carrots and celery to melon or  strawberry.

 

“It’s proving to be very popular,” Philpott-Adhikary said of the program, we serve on average 20 pounds of lettuce a week, which is a lot of lettuce.”

The school’s program was recently reviewed and given high praise for the thoroughness of the program. The school was given an additional funding of $750 to continue adding to the program. Keremeos Pharmasave also donated a hand sanitizer and four cases of sanitizer to the program.

“The students all take Food Safe training,” Philpott-Adhikary continued. “They bake something fresh every day.”

Students access the cafeteria menu through a card that students can pre pay. At $3 for a heaping nine inch plate, the program also represents good value.

Last week SESS culinary students were also busy preparing for a huge lunchtime turkey dinner being served to school staff, students and parents.