Ann Cooper and the Lunch Box

Ann Cooper has a vision. Her vision is to “transform how we feed our children in school each day, from highly processes to highly nourishing food – one school lunch at a time.” She is widely known as “The Renegade Lunch Lady,” is an accomplished chef, and coordinator of a movement to provide parents, schools, and students with the tools to make their school food both healthy and delicious. The result of the latter has been www.thelunchbox.org . This site provides resources geared toward each individual audience and has featured articles, recipes, and links to a support community so that everyone and anyone can get involved in making a change in their own communities!

Among the resources available are downloadable guides for Lunch Box initiatives. One of their most popular initiatives is Rainbow Days. This program sparks children’s excitement and interest in eating fruits and vegetables by getting them engaged in the process of eating. Students are encouraged to pick a “rainbow” of food from the salad bar. They can choose foods such as strawberries (red), carrots (orange), corn (yellow), avocado (green), blueberries (blue), and grapes (purple). Volunteers are stationed at the trash to hand out “I Made A Rainbow” stickers to those who finished eating their entire rainbow. Activities such as this one are innovative ways that Ann has been successful in changing kid’s ideas about their food. With this kind of direct engagement, Ann has seen so much success. Another of her projects is called Lets Move Salad Bars to Schools. This project has installed 1,414 salad bars in schools and has served over 700,000 kids fresh fruits and vegetables!

It is projects like these that have given Ann Cooper her reputation as a “Renegade Lunch Lady.” She is truly making a difference in how kids see their food and how the American public school complex feeds our youth. To learn more about Ann and her amazing initiatives please visit her website and tune in Tuesday, June 26th at 7:00 p.m. MST for our LIVE webinar with Ann.

To register please click the link below:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/750786672

Written by Savannah Miller, Marketing and Events Coordinator