First Lady Mentions Local Decaturite in Speech
Local father of three, Aaron Marks, took his passion for healthy food in schools to the top, earning a mention in Michelle Obama's speech in Atlanta Wednesday
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When Aaron Marks sent his son Murray to College Heights Early Childhood Learning Center in Decatur, he was stunned to learn what the school served for breakfast.
Instead of sitting back and saying nothing, Marks stepped up with a group of parents and in three short years, changed the way the City Schools of Decatur school system looks at its school breakfast and lunch menus.
It earned Marks a ticket to see First Lady Michelle Obama speak about her Let's Move campaign on Wednesday and a mention in her speech on obesity and nutrition.
"You just can't take no for an answer. You have to be tenacious," Marks was quoted as saying in the First Lady's speech at North Point Community Church in Alpharetta.
It all began when Marks learned one day that College Heights was serving "fortified" doughnuts, breakfast pizza and other unhealthy options to preschoolers and his toddler, age 2 at the time.
These food items were shocking to parents, including Marks, because many toddlers - ages 1 and 2 - were eating these items, and other foods, including fried fish sticks, nuggets and other items, for the first time in their young lives.
"I couldn't believe the school was doing that and serving those items," Marks said.
At the time, College Heights was in its infancy as well, having been formed as part of a City Schools of Decatur partnership with the Decatur-DeKalb YMCA, which ran the preschool, after school and summer camps programs.
"The parents agreed with me," Marks said. "They told me 'that’s why my child brings their own lunch.' That was their answer."
So Marks and a group of concerned parents, including Lucia Pawloski, then on the PTA, took action.
They formed a school committee to look more deeply at school nutrition and began planning how to change the food at College Heights.
What these parents found out was startling: this type of food was being served to children throughout the school system.
Marks even snapped photos of the breakfast pizza as proof and he took the findings to City Schools of Decatur Superintendent Phyllis Edwards.
The nutrition committee also raised funds for a school garden from the College Heights' first-ever cookbook effort.
Marks and other nutrition committee members also went shopping with the College Heights preschool director to help come up with a new list of snacks for the children, such as yogurt instead of canned fruit in sugar-laden syrup.
Around the same time, Pawloski helped to launch the Decatur Farm to School initiative, which works with the city's schools and the community to integrate gardens and local farm produce into the curriculum, has helped to push some of these recent changes. Farm to School is connected now with the Oakhurst Community Garden.
City Schools of Decatur lunch and breakfast menus have since seen a sea change of offerings. There's more baked chicken and fresh fruits and vegetables. And there's no more "fortified" doughnuts or breakfast pizza.
City Schools of Decatur also recently received $6,000 in funding from the Great American Salad Bar Project for three portable salad bars to be installed at Glennwood Academy, Renfroe Middle and Decatur High schools.
"There was a tremendous amout of work done by people who didn’t care about credit," Marks said. "At the end of the day, the food was not as good as the kids should be getting and wasn't what I would feed my own children."
Nicki Salcedo
10:10 am on Thursday, February 10, 2011
It's great to see parents who don't just complain, but use their concerns as a launching point for positive improvements in our community. One of my children is in class with Aaron Mark's child, and I'm feeling a lot of pressure to make sure my snacks are awesome during my snack duty week! :) Thanks, Aaron and Lucia. Thanks, Renee for this nice coverage.
Chris Billingsley
6:36 am on Friday, February 11, 2011
If parents and children do not like the choices offered by the school lunch program, I have a suggestion, bring your own lunch to school.
The school lunch program was established to provide low income students with a free and nutritious meal. It was never intended to be a program for those who would demand all- organic, locally grown (a code phrase for expensive foods provided by those with connections to the organic activists) "farm-to-school" foods.
School cafeterias have always offered the most nutritious foods, served by dedicated staffs, at the lowest possible price for the consumer and the taxpayer. I resent the implication in the article that our school cafeteria staff were serving less than nutritious foods. I am lucky enough to eat in a school cafeteria everyday and I have always found my meals a great bargain as well as delicious. You want something better? Bring your own lunch or better yet, spend your own money and prepare all-organic foods for ten students in your child's class.
These programs are not about better nutrition. It's about force. The farm-to-school food police want to force local school boards to serve what they think is the best lunch. The cost of the program will skyrocket, there will be fewer choices in school cafeterias, incredible amounts of expensive food will be thrown away, but the food elites will at least be happy.
Robert Fishman
11:40 am on Saturday, February 12, 2011
Chris, I think you're missing something. Police actions are top down. What's happening in Decatur's cafeterias is bottoms-up. You cannot force people to do something when you're the weaker player, which those advocating for more nutritious foods in school certainly are. What's notable is that they've made up for this through perseverance and by presenting an alternate vision that others are increasingly believing in and supporting. In essence, they're effecting change democratically and they're operating in the manner of the free market, where better ideas rise to the top.
I get the sense you wrap your outrage in such over the top hyperbole not because you're anti-democracy or anti-free market but because you simply disagree with what's happening. But that's the way the democratic system works. Not everyone gets their own way. If everyone in Decatur agreed with you and you put in the shoe-leather these folks have, all this nutritious food business would die on the vine. But I don't think that's going to happen.
Aaron Marks
8:02 pm on Friday, February 11, 2011
I was thrilled that Michelle Obama mentioned the efforts in Decatur in her speech this week. I’d like to add that while a small group of parents provided the initial push to look at the food served in our school cafeterias, the lasting changes that we’ve achieved are a result of the collaborative work of so many more committed groups and individuals: the school nutrition department and teachers and administrators of the City Schools of Decatur, the Oakhurst Community Garden Project, Georgia Organics, the Decatur Education Foundation, and many others. We’re lucky to live in a community of passionate, hard-working and caring people – together we really are making a difference.
Renee DeGross Valdes
8:24 pm on Friday, February 11, 2011
I will add a link to the changes to the school lunch program here: http://patch.com/A-ds36
If the government thought it was okay to serve foods with high fructose corn syrup, they would continue doing it. Obesity rates have skyrocketed among children of every stripe. So maybe the question to readers is why give doughnuts to children so young in College Heights, when they have yet to acquire a taste for them? Parents can take the responsibility at home of feeding their children whatever they want or can afford. But it's a fact that College Heights served those fortified doughnuts to children even before Aaron Marks' child arrived at age 2. Worse yet, children ages 1 also received those doughnuts. So the question is, does that help or hinder the obesity equation?