A great school is built with the participation of administration, faculty, and, most importantly, students. At AHS the combined effort to constantly improve can be seen, most recently, in the work of a science class whose official mission statement is, “To initiate a program that would promote healthy breakfast foods and physical activity in order to create and sustain healthy habits among the student body.” With their mission in mind, Mrs. Vicki Joule’s eighth period Science Research class wrote a grant to Fuel Up to Play to get money to use to purchase healthier breakfast choices in order to improve the cafeteria breakfast offerings.
Fuel Up to Play 60 is an organization that promotes healthy eating and being active for 60 minutes every day. The two sponsors behind the organization are the NFL (National Football League) and the MWDC (Midwest Dairy Council). After much work, the class did, ultimately, receive the grant for better food. The grant gave them $2,000 to purchase food to use in a taste test and $1,000 for promoting activities, which will go toward both the purchase of pedometers and the funding of a kick-off rally.
The money was a nice reward after working for months to write the grant. Senior Ashlee Wright, one of the students who wrote the grant stated, “Yeah, it really was a lot of work, but I think it will help the school and it was definitely worth the time it took.”
The project began as one of Mrs. Joule’s assignments for her Science Research students. She wants her students to write a new grant every year with an eye toward constantly improving the school. This years’ class brainstormed what to focus on and food ended-up being the general consensus. The first plan was to purchase food vending machines, but there are not any venders in the area. Then, after both a lucky find in a newspaper article and Christine Kesterson’s mention of the Fuel Up to Play 60 program, they decided to focus their efforts in that direction.
The process began with a powerpoint presentation that they brought to the principal, Mr. Richard Zarkowski, who gave it his approval; he then had them take it to the Alliance School Board to let members know what the goal was and to get them on board. After they had the project approved, they moved toward the goal of actually getting the grant. This meant writing an essay to be sent and considered for approval. The Nebraska representative of the Fuel Up program read the essay and had the class tweak it for a better chance of approval. Last, the final draft was submitted and ultimately made it through eliminations to be accepted as a grant recipient.
With the newly acquired funds the class will buy food from Cashway (the suppliers of food for AHS cafeteria lunches) and students will subjugate these selections to taste tests each Thursday during Advisory in March. In all there will be five taste tests to see what breakfast foods students like and what they would be most likely to purchase from the servery for breakfast. The plan is to chose the tastiest breakfast items to sell in the cafeteria for one dollar each. The class also wants to promote healthy cardio exercise, through activities like walking or running, which aren’t extreme but do keep students healthy.
The activity phase of the program will begin sometime in February when students receive the grant funds. It will kick-off with the distribution of pedometers to be used to track each student’s activity. The activities promise to be fun and have the potential for students to win prizes. Approximately 119 students at AHS have already taken the pledge to participate, and so can you by going to fueluptoplay60.com. The Science Research class also hopes to get t-shirts sporting their slogan: “Show your bulldog pride, stride toward the healthy side.”
Those who have worked hard to make all of this possible include: Karen Aerts-Curitss, the in-school consultant; Christine Kesterson, the nutrition consultant; Mrs. Joule, the advisor; and the eighth period Science Research class: seniors Micaela Adam, Hannah Kesterson, Valerie Beraun, and Ashlee Wright.
