Salad Bar Anniversary on Friday

RUSD Farmers’ Market Salad Bar program to be celebrated at April 16 anniversary event
The fifth anniversary of the nationally-recognized Farmers’ Market Salad Bar program will be celebrated at 9:30 AM Friday, April 16 at Emerson Elementary School. The event will feature a ceremony, garden tours and a fresh salad bar lunch to celebrate this unique program, which brings locally-grown produce to 29 elementary schools across the Riverside Unified School District. This program, one of only two in Southern California, is the largest of its kind in the nation.Since it began, more than 1.3 million salad bar meals have been served. In 2008-09, 565,134 elementary school salad bar lunches were served and the district has served 412,797 meals so far this year. Numerous local, state and federal dignitaries are slated to attend the event, including Kevin Concannon, United States Agriculture Department Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.“We are excited to celebrate this milestone with the entire community,” noted Rodney Taylor, Director of Nutrition Services for the Riverside Unified School District. “Five years ago, we began an incredibly ambitious project to bring fresh produce to as many students as possible. The Farmer’s Market Salad Bar program has allowed us to do just that. Not only do students enjoy fresh fruits and vegetables from local farms, but they also get to grow their own produce, which is incredibly empowering to children as they learn to make healthier choices that they hopefully will carry with them throughout their lives.”The Riverside Unified School District Farmers’ Market Salad Bar program is based on a similar program begun in the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. That program also was started by Taylor, working in conjunction with Occidental College. Occidental College Professor Robert Gottlieb, Urban and Environmental Policy Institute Director, wrote the grant that funded the pilot program in Riverside Unified School District.The RUSD salad bar program has drawn significant national attention since it began and has been featured in countless books, magazines and documentaries and has won numerous awards. Most recently, the RUSD salad bar program was the recipient of United States Senator Barbara Boxer’s Health Care Champion Award.