PCPSB Child Nutrition Program

Today was a special day in our cafeterias across the district! Our Thanksgiving Feast was enjoyed by many students and even some family members! We are very grateful this Thanksgiving for our CNP staff members who worked so hard to make this delicious day possible for all. We loved seeing all of the smiling faces and thumbs up today!

🦃🫛🍠 🥐🍎🥛

Over the past few weeks we have been offering a U.S. Department of Agriculture Team Nutrition lesson on choosing healthy snacks for 8th graders across the district. Students learned about how snack choices can impact health, ways to snack healthy, and how to compare snack options! This has been a great lesson and a lot of fun with our students!

It’s smelling good in the school kitchens today! Our crews are prepping a student favorite for warm breakfasts tomorrow!! 😍😋

Brrrrrrr… it was cold today, but our students had a delicious homemade hot lunch! Students across the district got to enjoy a warm bowl of chili for lunch today thanks to our hard working CNP crews! This recipe was tested with students then perfected and served today with outstanding reviews. Hats off to our chefs and Happy Halloween to our students!

🎃👻🥣

Round #2! All things Pumpkin 🎃 We had so much fun with Upper Pointe Coupee Elementary kindergarten students! They learned how pumpkins grow using an interactive activity sheet, the health benefits of pumpkin, and even tasted a pumpkin yogurt pudding parfait! Thank you Ms. Vaccaro and Ms. Williams for inviting us into your classroom 🌱 🎃 🥣

Today our cafeterias were buzzing with excitement! We had the opportunity to work with a local farmer Mr. Lester Williams for this month’s Harvest of the Month vegetable- sweet potaotes! The drought was tough on Mr. Lester’s crop in Pointe Coupee, but knowing we wanted local, he sourced us fresh sweet potatoes from a fellow farmer in Avoyelles parish! We are looking forward to continuing to partner with Mr. Lester to bring our students fresh, local produce throughout the year.

Today, the sweet potatoes were baked and served with our delicious chicken and sausage gumbo. Students across the district enjoyed the fresh sweet potatoes and were excited to hear about local farmers and how they grow our food! For many students, today was the first time trying a fresh sweet potato! 😃

🍠👨🏾‍🌾🥣😋

All things Pumpkin 🎃 We had so much fun this morning during our nutrition-based science lesson with Rosenwald Elementary Pre-K students! They learned how pumpkins grow using an interactive activity sheet, the health benefits of pumpkin, and even tasted a pumpkin yogurt pudding! Thank you Ms. Jones and Ms. Harris for inviting us into your classroom! 🌱 🎃 🥣

We finished up National School Lunch Week today with a really fun taste test event at STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee!! The Eagles got to try a new home style chili recipe prepared by our Head Chef Christy! Students tested samples of the recipe then completed evaluations and gave their feedback about the recipe. Overall we had great feedback with majority of reviews being positive. Chef Christy is excited to work with this feedback and tweak the recipe to perfection, for our students to enjoy soon on the menu!

👩🏻‍🍳🥣

National School Lunch week continued today with a fun new fresh fruit for our students! Fresh cut cantaloupe and honey dew melon cups were served today throughout the district. We had some excitement surrounding this fruit, as it was a first time try for many students! We ended the day with a lot of thumbs up and smiles! Our ladies say these smiles make all the hard work worth it!

👍🏻 😃 ❤️

Attention students: Grab your controllers and get ready to level up with school lunch! Healthy school meals are the perfect power-ups to set kids up to conquer whatever challenges they face. October 9 – 13th is National School Lunch Week! This week was created by President John F. Kennedy in 1962 to promote the importance of healthy school lunches in children’s lives. This year’s theme is “Level Up with School Lunch”. Our schools across the district will be competing this week to win an extra Cheesy Beefy Nacho Lunch Day!! All you students have to do is participate in eating school lunch! The school that “Levels Up” the highest percentage in participation for the week will win!! Let’s have some fun and Level Up with SCHOOL LUNCH!!

👾🌮🕹️🥗🎮🍊

Fall break started today for our students, but many got in some great nutrition education before they left for break! Last week, Ms. Rebecca worked with students at Livonia High School and Valverda Elementary School. Students learned about MyPlate, healthy eating from head 👦 to toe 🦶, and macronutrients! These students have more to learn as lessons will continue later this month, but they were engaged and excited to be gaining insightful knowledge for their own health! Health is wealth!

Today was our third round of serving the new spaghetti and homemade meatball recipe across the district! Students all around are giving thumbs up and excited about this new recipe. Great job done by our head chef and cafeteria crews for creating this recipe and executing this so well! Over 4,000 meatballs were served today, that’s a lotttttt of meatballs to make, thanks ladies! 😊

🍝🥗🍎🍊🥖👩🏽‍🍳

The ladies at Upper Pointe Coupee Elementary had it going on in the kitchen today! Check out these delicious breakfast and lunch plates being prepped, as well some beautiful whole grain cinnamon rolls cooling for tomorrow’s breakfast! Yummmyyyy! 😋

🍓🫘🍚🥐🥗🥛

Students at STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee and Valverda Elementary School have been enjoying their nutrition fact label lessons during health and PE classes with Ms. Rebecca! Students brought labels from food items at home to work on these lessons and learned more about how to make informed healthy choices using food labels. Great job students!

We’ve got some excited ladies in our kitchens this week! Our new dish sink installation began Tuesday and has kept us busy through the week! These new sinks have been needed for some time and will be a big help to our hardworking crews in the kitchens.

The installation process will continue until sinks are replaced at all 6 of our schools, but we couldn’t finish this week without shouting out our hardworking helpers Mr. Donald and Mr. Russell from PCPSB maintenance. These guys have been working hard to ensure the installation process was completed in time to keep our kitchens running for each school day. Thanks guys, we are so appreciative of your hard work! 💪🏽

“Burrito Boat” Friday was busy today! Students across the district tried out this new menu and we are so proud of them for trying something new! The students were able to layer whole grain mexican rice, fajita chicken, lettuce, tomato, and avocado into a “boat” to their liking! They also had options of black bean and corn salsa, regular tomato salsa, and shredded cheese as additional toppings. We got plenty of thumbs up today and are excited we were able to give new food experiences to our students. Overall, it seemed they were most excited to try avocado! Great job to our CNP team on pulling off this big menu and to our students to being open to trying something new!

🌯🥑🍅🫘🌽🥬

Check out the Valverda Elementary School Kittens! Physical activity is such an important part of student wellness! Way to go Kittens!

🏋🏽💪🏾🏃🏼‍♀️

We had a great morning teaming up with STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee and Pointe Coupee General Hospital to offer Parfaits with Parents! This fun nutrition education program was offered during the school book fair and will be happening again tomorrow and Thursday during book fair hours.

Students and their parents were able to taste test yogurt parfaits with fresh strawberries and blueberries, as well as gain some insightful nutrition and wellness tips they can try at home!

🍓🫐🍓

Homemade whole grain rolls coming out the oven this morning! They will be perfectly warm and delicious for lunch, and have the cafeterias smelling amazing! 😊

Today was an exciting day for our students as they were able to cool off in the cafeterias with fresh watermelon at lunch!

Watermelon is the Louisiana Harvest of the Month fruit for August! Our ladies worked extra hard to cut and prepare these beautiful fresh watermelon dishes for our students, and students approved! 😃

Watermelon is a member of the Cucurbitaceae family, also known as the cucurbits or gourd family. This family includes crops such as cucumber, cantaloupe, squash, and gourd. Watermelons prefer hot, dry climates and can grow well in Louisiana if planted in well-draining soil. Watermelons are almost entirely water, which makes them a refreshing treat on a hot day. They are also loaded with nutrition, making them a perfect snack and great addition to our menu today, to encourage students to eat the rainbow and stay hydrated!

🍉🍉🍉🍉🍉

It's Month!

Did you know that all of our school meals have healthy hidden secrets to make sure our ! All school meals meet USDA guidelines, that we will highlight this month.

Today we tested a new menu that students really enjoyed! This Philly Cheese steak menu included a whole grain hoagie roll that students were excited about! Whole grains play an important part in our diet. They are packed with fiber which promotes digestive and heart health, as well as provide additional vitamins, minerals, and high levels of antioxidants!

Each meal your child eats in our program contains whole grains like brown rice, whole grain blend pasta, and even whole grain breakfast and bread items! Try some whole grains at home in your child’s meals for all these added benefits and to ensure your !

Learn more on kids eat right here: sm.eatright.org/KERmonth

We can’t let the day go by without shouting out our hardworking crews who’ve been training, planning, prepping, and all the other things over the last two weeks, to get ready and fuel the hungry minds of our students today!! We are so grateful for their hard work, dedication, and love put into feeding the students across our district today and throughout the rest of the year!

We’ve been quiet lately because we were busy in July teaming up with Pointe Coupee Parish Extension Office-LSU AgCenter! Along with groups of volunteers from STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee, Upper Pointe Coupee Elementary, Rougon Elementary School, and Rosenwald Elementary we were able to complete fun physical activity stencils around school campuses for all students to enjoy! This project was a hot one, but we know our students will enjoy these activities during their recess and PE time at school this year! Stay tuned as we finish up this stencil project this fall at another school! Huge thanks to our volunteers and LSU Ag for helping to make this project possible! ❤️

🤸🏽‍♂️🏃🏼‍♀️🤽🏽🏃🏾‍♂️

Our Summer Nutrition Series finale week was the last week of June and our campers had lots of fun with food models! They put their knowledge learned all month long to the test. Campers got to create their own versions of healthy plates using MyPlate and food models, highlighting the food groups and which foods go into each group. At the end of the program all campers got to take home their own lunch tray kit to make healthy plates all summer long! 😃 Special thanks to Rosenwald Elementary, Upper Pointe Coupee Elementary, and Valverda Elementary School for letting us take part in your summer programs!

🍽️🥗🍓🥑🍊🍉🥝🥖🥦

We had a blast for week three of our Summer Nutrition Series teaming up with Pointe Coupee Parish Extension Office-LSU AgCenter! This week students enjoyed a lesson on hydration, ways to flavor water with fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs, as well as eating the rainbow.🥦🍊🌈 🍆🍋🫐

As always, the kids enjoyed fun physical fitness activities. We can’t wait for the finale next week!

Week two of the Summer Nutrition Series wrapped up yesterday with lots of fun and yummy snacking! Campers were super engaged in a fun exercise activity then refueled with a fun homemade snack- trail mix! During the snack session campers learned about healthy snacks and how they help to refuel our bodies and minds! It was definitely a fun week and we thank the Kittens and Trojans for having us back! 😃

Our summer nutrition series started off this week! We had a lot of fun with the 21st Century Summer campers at Rosenwald Elementary and Valverda Elementary School! The series will continue for the next three weeks in June with more fun nutrition learning and activities ahead!

😊🥗🍓🥑🍊🍇👩🏽‍🍳

We had the best time teaming up with Pointe Coupee Parish Extension Office-LSU AgCenter and Pointe Coupee General Hospital for a super fun Chef Camp for kids! Special thanks to Mrs. Breanna with LSU Ag for allowing us to join in on the fun! The kids had a blast as well and we can’t wait to collaborate with these community partners on more fun projects in the future!!

School is out, but our meals aren’t! Summer meals start next Monday, June 5th! Come enjoy a delicious hot meal for breakfast, lunch, or both! We’d love to see you! Check out the flyer below for site information and times!

😃🍴🥦🍉🍏🫐🍴😃

The freshman class at STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee ended the school year with a nutrition lesson focused on diabetes prevention and management from our RD, Rebecca Guidroz. Thank you Mrs. Jackie for inviting us to be a part of your diabetes curriculum!

The cafeterias are smelling good today prepping for tomorrow. Homemade whole grain cinnamon rolls, a student favorite!! 😃❤️

The last week and half students from across our district have been taste testing a potential new menu item: Amazing Chickpea Chocolatey Spread! The students were super excited to test this out with their fresh strawberries and apples! It had a 78% approval rate with over 1,000 students testing and responding to the survey! We are super excited to find a healthy option for our students that is delicious and fun! Stay tuned students, it may be coming to a menu near you next year! 😉

🍓🍎😃👍🏽

The Valverda Elementary School kittens were super excited about their new cafeteria serving line today! This serving line has been ordered for quite some time, but the students and ladies agree it was worth the wait! Some of the students’ comments included: “It’s like we’re at a fancy restaurant!”; “This is so cool!”; “I love this, it’s so pretty with the lights!”; “Hey, we fancy!”; “It looks like Golden Corral!”. Enjoy it kittens, we know our crew will too! 😃

❤️🧑🏽‍🍳👧🏼👦🏾

Check out this fun opportunity for kid’s Chef Camp!!

👩🏼‍🍳🧑🏾‍🍳👨🏻‍🍳👨🏽‍🍳

Join us for a trip to the Mediterranean! Kids will prepare dishes from the Mediterranean countries over two days of camp! Click https://forms.office.com/r/bCHAuzwT1i to sign up today!

From the kitchen to the lunchroom, cafeteria staff is essential to making sure our students eat well and learn. We're so grateful for all you do every day to fuel our students’ growing minds! Join us as we recognize the dedication and hard work of our district’s school lunch professionals. Happy ! Thank you for all you do PCPSB CNP Team!

🍎🌮🍊🍌🥚🧀🍇🥯

We are super excited to celebrate our school lunch heroes next week! Stay tuned to see the heroes who fuel our growing minds each day here in Pointe Coupee public schools!! ❤️

May 5th is School Lunch Hero Day--a national celebration that empowers students to harness the power of their creativity to express gratitude for all of the hard work being done in our school cafeterias! How will your school celebrate?! http://www.schoollunchheroday.com/

Fun night fueling the Kittens!!

Today Mrs. Breanna Staab with the Pointe Coupee Parish Extension Office-LSU AgCenter presented to some of our STEM Magnet Academy of Pointe Coupee and Livonia High School students on “Color the Rainbow!” Students learned about the nutrients found in fruits, vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates, as well as their benefits to the body. They even played a game of memory with fruits and vegetables!

Today is National Walking Day. Let’s all get up and move!