A Charter School Does it Right

By Ed Bruske
aka The Slow Cook

In response to an article about the woeful state of D.C school food I wrote for the Washington Post's "Outlook" section recently, the chef and director of Elsie Whitelow Stokes Community Freedom Charter School in Northeast D.C. published a long letter in the Post last week detailing how they serve fresh food to their kids on a daily basis.

Lisa Dobbs, the chef, and Linda Moore, the school's founder and director, explain how the school moved into a building with an old kitchen and obtained funds for an upgrade from a small non-profit. They used federal stimulus money to purchase more equipment and hire three additional staffers. Now a kitchen contingent of five is making meals for 400 students and staff from scratch using locally-sourced ingredients. They also have a salad bar they say the students pick clean every day.

Serving fresh food attractively isn't necessarily easy, Dobbs and Moore write. It takes lots of hard work. What motivates them is knowing that kids "will not eat -- nor will most adults -- vegetables that have been frozen or processed until they become nasty mush."

You can read the full letter here.