Chris Higgins to ride in the Tour de Fresh 2016 to support the Irving Independent School District
EVENT DATE: JUL 26, 2016
Tour de Fresh, presented by The California Giant Foundation, is the first-of-its-kind, collaborative event that unites the most significant brands and influencers in the fresh produce industry for a cycling event that raises funds to benefit the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools campaign. The 2014 and 2015 events raised over $300,000 and placed over 90 salads bars in schools across the country!
The goal of the 2016 Tour de Fresh and its participants is to privately finance 75+ new salad bars. At a cost of less than $3,000 per salad bar per school, sponsors and participants alike strongly believe that providing healthy eating opportunities for school children should be a requirement.
Both academic research and actual experience in schools across the country are increasingly demonstrating that school children significantly increase their consumption of fruits and vegetables when given a variety of choices in a school fruit and vegetable salad bar. When offered multiple fruit and vegetable choices, children respond by trying new items, incorporating greater variety into their diets, and increasing their daily consumption of fruits and vegetables.
The benefit of salad bars in schools extends beyond the healthy foods consumed during the breakfast or lunch hour. Increased daily access to a variety of fruits and vegetables provides a personal experience about choices that can shape behavior far beyond the school lunch line. Children learn to make decisions that carry over outside of school, providing a platform for a lifetime of healthy snack and meal choices.
The White House Task Force on Childhood Obesity has endorsed schools using salad bars and upgrading cafeteria equipment to support providing healthier foods to kids. In 2009, the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine concluded that schools need to add as many as two servings of fruits and vegetables daily to meals in order to meet children’s basic health requirements.
Many school districts are either unaware of the benefits salad bars can bring to their students, or have been unable to afford the basic equipment needed to adopt this strategy. The powerful health benefit that can come with a modern, food-safety compliant salad bar is too often blocked by the prohibitive capital cost in many school districts. Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools is creating the opportunity make change.
This year Urban Ag News founder Chris Higgins is supporting the Irving Independent School District.
Join me in making sure the kids of Irving Texas are healthy and prepared to learn.
Click here to donate now!