charleston

Recently, I joined students and staff there for breakfast and was delighted to see the youngsters start their day with a delicious parfait along with cereal, juice, milk, fresh-baked muffins and sliced oranges. While balancing the tall plastic containers of fruit and granola parfait proved just a bit challenging for a few of the younger kids carrying breakfast trays to their tables at Piedmont Year-round Elementary School in Charleston, West Virginia, the meal itself was exactly the type of healthy, well-balanced meal envisioned with the recent improvements to school meal standards issued by USDA.

Cross posted from the Let's Move! blog:

Historical Charleston, S.C., blends the traditional Southern American, English, French, and West African elements into a celebration of its colorful and rich culture.  Burke Middle & High School in Charleston celebrated this mix of colorful culture with its semi-finalist recipe, Confetti Soup, making a history all its own through nutrition.  The rich wintery soup made with black-eyed pea dots, mixed together with savory smoked ham and dashes of greens, was the center piece at a judging event in First Lady Michelle Obama’s Recipes for Healthy Kids competition, held at the school on May 25.

Burke has a record of making history, founded in 1910, it was the first public high school for African-Americans in Charleston. And the school is looking to make history once again as the winner of the Recipes for Healthy Kids competition with its delicious recipe.

Cross-posted from the www.letsmove.gov blogBy Julie Paradis, USDA Food and Nutrition Service Administrator

This week I got a chance to travel to South Carolina and to talk to child nutrition staff from South Carolina as well as surrounding States like Tennessee, Mississippi and North Carolina about how we plan to improve school meals and the overall health of our nation’s children. It was a great group and a productive discussion.