Schools
Student Nutrition Event Set for Saturday at Middleton High
Hillsborough County's Student Nutrition Services will stage a free event for families eligible for free lunch with its Power Up for Healthy Meals seminar.
Middleton High School's cafeteria will be turned into a forum for the county's Student Nutrition Services and their community partners to discuss different facets of youth health on Saturday.
The YMCA and District Chef Ben Guggenmos will be on hand with the department and will help make the event both fun and educational for the attendees.
"We're going to have healthy snack demonstrations and fitness demonstrations to keep the event entertaining," Student Nutrition Services communications specialist Ginain Grayes said. "We'll have allergy forms for parents to fill out as well. Parents can have all this business taken care of before the back to school rush and find out what benefits are available for them."
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Guggenmos will provide the healthy snacks while the YMCA will conduct Zumba (dance) and fitness demonstrations as well as "germ city", a hand washing activity for kids.
"We're really excited about this because its one of our first community events that we're hosting," Grayes said. "We've been looking to reach out and engage the parents more so they know what is available to them and what is good about school lunch. They need to know what we're doing to provide healthy options for their children."
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The department provides information on its website about the menu that it designs for school lunch, including the nutritional value of every item served.
"Everything is at the parents disposal," Grayes said. "In this day and age, transparency is important. At this point, it's about educating our kids about making healthy choices."
On hand will be computers that parents can use to apply for the free and reduced lunch program.
"It usually takes a little bit of time but what makes this special is that the parents will find out right there whether or not they qualify," Grayes said. "We'll also be showing them information about Meal Pay Plus, a program that allows them to monitor what their children are eating everyday for lunch as well as make payments."
The event will take place from 9 a.m.-1 p.m this Saturday in the Middleton High School gym. The event is free of cost and open to the public.