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Minneapolis Public Schools packs 5-day meal boxes with powerful nutrition, fresh produce
Back to school started a bit later in Minneapolis, which gave the food service team time to take advantage of new USDA waivers, allowing them to send home five days of meals to students in the district who are learning from home this year.
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The latest waivers from the USDA regarding how many items can be served at once came just in time for the start of school at Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS).
“MPS is really lucky that our school year starts later than most and the USDA waiver came through before we started,” says Rebecca Polson, C.C., SNS, culinary trainer with Culinary Wellness Services at Minneapolis Public Schools.
After the initial shutdown in March, the foodservice team started handing out “brunch bags,” with one breakfast and one lunch, then shifted a couple weeks later to five-day boxes, and soon after that, seven-day boxes.
“Our fall school meal boxes were originally going to follow NSLP and have a breakfast and lunch for each instructional day, so our first box would’ve had only four breakfasts and four lunches,” Polson says.
But when the new waivers came through, “we’ve been able to increase that box to have five meals and hopefully moving forward in the near future we’ll get back to seven days,” she says.
Check out these examples of power-packed meal boxes from MPS.
Contact Tara at [email protected]
Follow her on Twitter @Tara_Fitzie
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