New Nutrition Program Brings Healthy Snacks to Students

A nutrition program is expanding at CHAH because of new funding that was awarded.

Ms. Kenia has been giving out tangerines for a year to help make sure that students have access to healthy snacks throughout the day. She said that at the beginning of the school she finally received the money to make the program bigger.This year, she gets 100 tangerines, some juices and candy every Tuesday and Thursday to distribute from her room.

Ms. Kenia is the social worker at CHAH, and she runs a lunch and breakfast club. These food clubs make up the wellness club that Ms. Kenia has been doing for a few years.

This new program started in a bit of a funny way. Last year, a few students had organized a harmless prank on Ms. Kenia. They grabbed a bunch of tangerines from the lunch room at breakfast before going up to her class and then placed them all around her desk. One of the students even hidden under her desk until she came back. Ms. Kenia said, “And that was the first time that I actually opened a tangerine. And I thought, oh my gosh, they’re so easy to open and they taste so good.” The leftover tangerines were put on a table she had in her room, and as students kept taking them, they were gone before the day was even over.

Ms. Kenia said, “And it came to a point that the cafeteria, they have a policy that we’re not allowed to take fruits out of the cafeteria.” This became an issue because students had started to really want tangerines throughout the day. Ms. Kenia talked to Mr. Tusher, the assistant principal, to see what could happen, and they were able to get Fresh Direct to give the school tangerines twice a week for anyone who’s interested.