Gold-Level Honors for Our Nutrition and Fitness Efforts

The BCSD elementary schools were honored January 20, 2010 for achieving Gold Level status in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) HealthierUS Schools Challenge. Only two other school districts in New York State earned this honor.

The HealthierUS Schools Challenge program was established to recognize schools that are creating healthier environments through their promotion of good nutrition and physical activity. To achieve Gold Level status, our schools met the following requirements:

•  being enrolled with the USDA as a Team Nutrition school,
•  offering reimbursable lunches that demonstrate healthy menu planning practices and principles of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,
  
•  providing nutrition education to students,
• providing the opportunity for physical education,
• maintaining an average daily participation of 70 percent or higher for reimbursable lunches, and
  
• adhering to the guidelines established by the Food and Nutrition Services for foods served and sold in schools outside of the National School Lunch Program.

A special awards ceremony was held on January 20 at the Broome County Veterans' Memorial Arena, featuring a health fair with exhibits from each school as well as from several of our partner organizations such as United Health Services and WSKG.

Fifty students from each school participated in the event, and marched up the center of the Arena wearing specially-designed t-shirts and waving small flags emblazoned with  our cafeteria characters, "Rex" and "Roxy," and the "Rock On Cafe" cafeteria logo.

USDA Deputy Undersecretary Dr. Janey Thornton presented plaques and banners to each of our elementary schools, and encouraged the children to maintain their healthy eating habits and to stay physically active.

A reception was held at Columbus School the previous evening to thank the food service employees who work so hard each day to provide healthy and nutritious meals to our students.