Some of the things Shannon has worked on since she became Huband Elementary Salad Bar Coordinator:
Created check lists for kitchen volunteers – according to feature of the week. What ingredients and how much to be served.
Created grocery lists (according to feature of the week)
Weekly totals are recorded: cost of groceries, number of students on list, number of plates served, weight of the waste, what class helped serve, who volunteered and what feature was served.
11 of our 16 volunteers took the food safe course
We now have three wonderful ladies that do all our grocery shopping every Monday (the day before salad bar). Shannon creates a weekly grocery list and email it to them by Sunday night.
Created a nutritional education board that is changed monthly: Eating a rainbow, what is our carbon footprint, meet the farmers and next month will feature the salad bar volunteers and their kids.
Increased our volunteers from 5 to 20
Create a schedule for volunteers so everyone is getting time off (salad bar is a full day of volunteering and in order for salad bar to be sustainable ….volunteers need to be rotated)
Added a second salad bar, and doubled the equipment
New large cabinet for all our salad bar equipment
Created a rotation schedule for student helpers (Gr 4-7) each week. 6 helpers from 11:15 to 12:00. Each week a different class helps out.
Have aprons made and embroidered in school colors for kids to wear (kids are so proud to wear them). Helps to increase the buzz around salad bar and community.
Add Greek day: We now have: Mediterranean wraps, Mexican, Asian, Buns, Italian pasta, and homemade pizza day. These are all special “features” that are an addition to the rainbow of salad.
Decreased waste from 13 lbs to an average of 4-5 lbs. Education in classes was very helpful.
Organized 3 Vanier students from the prep program to come each week from 9:45 till 11:15 to cut all the veggies, help with set up and eat salad bar – they come with a support worker
We have had 6 student nurses come to help out from our local college
Outsourced more local farms / ingredients / bakery / butcher
New principal is very supportive of salad bar which makes all these things easier to implement
Almost doubled the amount of kids eating salad bar – 130–150 (2016-2017) to 210–220 (2017-2018).
Several friendships have come out of the salad bar program along with many social events outside of school. Proud to say we have created a “salad bar community!”