Today’s blog post is the 8th entry in our Fuel Up to Play 60 Sideline Success Series. Fuel Up to Play 60 reaches more than 70% of Indiana schools, and we are honored to share success stories from our dedicated students and advisors!
We’re always interested to hear what initiatives are working for our FUTP60 schools and what needs a slight adjustment. Here lately, we’ve been receiving a lot of positive feedback from the recent increase in school breakfast programs! We are thrilled to have so many dedicated schools around the state, but more than that, we are ecstatic that so many more students are powering up with protein thanks to the consumption of dairy!
Our most recent success story comes from J.E. Ober Elementary in Garrett, Indiana where the students have quickly jumped on board with breakfast. The following account from school advisor Janis Arrington highlights how her school’s breakfast participation has not only increased, but has provided quick results for her students who hadn’t been consuming a meal first thing in their day:
“We started with a goal of increasing the number of students eating breakfast by 5%. The students made announcements and invited a friend to breakfast at an upcoming picnic. They advertised the breakfast for two weeks prior to the picnic. The Student Wellness Team came up with the idea of inviting a friend to breakfast. They decided that during testing would be a good time to have the picnic. Administrators, PTO, cafeteria workers, teachers and a local physician helped with the planning of the picnic and volunteered their time during the breakfast. The teachers talked about how important eating breakfast is for fueling the brain to learn and to helping students do their best on the ISTEPs. The change that we have seen has been about a 2% increase in students eating breakfast daily either at home or at school.
Students will be keeping a chart in the month of May and documenting when they eat breakfast. This year prior to state testing we had an “Invite A Friend to Breakfast Picnic”. We had students that do not eat breakfast at school or at home come to our picnic. Several of the students said they did not like breakfast food, but after tasting different items on their plate, they said they liked the eggs and other items served and would eat it again. The number of students that eat breakfast at home or at school has increased since our picnic.
One student stopped me in the hallway and said his stomach does not hurt or make noises anymore since he eats breakfast every morning!”
As previously stated, we love hearing stories from individual schools and especially love knowing the students are experiencing the positive effects breakfast has on their school days!
