This past school year, the state FoodWIse program partnered with the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to improve the school cafeteria environment for elementary school students across the state. They reached out to local Nutrition Educators in Fond du Lac County to partner with specific schools within the Fond du Lac School District.
Melanie Phillips built a team for this project which consisted of FoodWIse, Riverside Elementary School school food service, and Chartwells (district food service) to implement the “School Meal Appeal” program. Each participating school across the state, including Riverside Elementary, received $1,000 to put towards the project. Melanie led team meetings to discuss the timeline for the project, the roles and responsibilities of each partner, and to determine overall project goals.
As a result of this partnership, the team completed the “Food Meal Appeal” assessment, which is a review of each individual school’s unique cafeteria environment. This is a tool that is used to evaluate the Riverside cafeteria and help identify strategies for implementation to improve participation in the school nutrition program and healthy eating habits among students in the lunchroom. Following the assessment, the team identified multiple strategies to work on in the upcoming school year. Some strategies are relatively quick, easy, and free of cost, while others may require greater time or financial commitment. Multiple strategies were implemented, including taste tests, cooking demonstrations, art work displays featuring fruits and vegetables, creative ways to display food items, and naming dishes with fun and interesting names, to name just a few. For example, due to a specific strategy, the cafeteria saw an increase in white milk consumption by 8% (compared to chocolate milk.) This project was complemented by FoodWIse’s Harvest of the Month (monthly Wisconsin grown fruit and vegetable promotion) and nutrition education lessons in the classroom.
A full report is available here: https://fonddulac.extension.wisc.edu/files/2025/06/School-Meal-Appeal-Project-Report.pdf
