Dear Students and Parents,

Welcome! As we begin a new school year Sodexo stands ready to provide students with a healthy and delicious food program to help them develop and achieve their overall well-being. 

Sodexo supports student engagement and improves the Quality of Life for the entire Schools community. As part of our commitment to enhancing Quality of Life for the clients, students and communities we serve, we invite you to view the newly redesigned content on Lift-Off!’s Playground. Lift-Off!’s Playground provides easy to navigate online content for students and families around nutrition, fitness and overall healthy living. 

Look on the site for the Monthly Fresh Pick. The Sodexo Fresh Pick program is designed to further the nutrition education of students, parents and educators by focusing on the many positive benefits of eating more fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Each month features an instructional recipe video starring Sodexo Ambassador and Student Chef, Chef Remmi, using the Fresh Pick nutritional item of the month. 

While you are visiting with Lift-Off!, don’t forget to check out our series of healthy cooking videos with Sodexo National Director of Wellness, Roxanne Moore, RDN. Throughout the videos, students talk about why each recipe is healthy. Many of the recipes were adapted from the Share Our Strength Cooking Matters program, the Gluten Intolerance Group or Sodexo and are designed to be kid-friendly.

Regards,

Steve Dunmore, President Sodexo Education – Schools

Westfield Washington Schools, Sodexo team up with local food pantry to stop hunger

For Washington Woods Elementary School fourth-grader Elizabeth Carney, the decision for her school to take part in Food Rescue was easy.

“I think it’s important not to waste your food and people that don’t have food can get food,” she said.

Carney is one of the students who have embraced Westfield Washington School District’s plan to give recycle leftover food from the students’ lunch trays for a mobile food pantry.

Sodexo provides the food service for the district. Beverly Goza-Holmes, a Sodexo general manager, serves as director of Student Nutrition Services for the school district.

“Two parents had heard about Food Rescue through another school district,” Goza-Holmes said. “We all met and we needed to decide how we would roll out the program. Sodexo is very big on stopping hunger. Finding a way to re-use the food that would go into the landfills is great. My biggest concern with the new (school lunch) regulations is that we are not wasting. Students have to take a fruit or a vegetable to be considered a reimbursable meal. Often times, they take it but they don’t want to eat it.”

Washington Woods and Oak Trace Elementary were the first two schools to pilot the program on Sept. 8. Goza-Holmes said she wanted to work the kinks out of the program before adding more schools. All nine district schools are now participating with the last three starting Sept. 29.