Chef Marvin Woods wanted to combat childhood health problems by bringing training and education to Atlanta schools. With the launch of Droppin' Knowledge, Woods' healthy eating program, he focused on improving line presentation, batch cooking and recipe compliance and customer service to turn school lunch around.
Two years ago, Chef Marvin Woods approached Beverly Hall, superintendent for the 49,700-student Atlanta Public Schools, saying he wanted to transform the school lunch program. With Hall’s blessing, Woods researched what the students knew about food and cooking techniques and used that information to launch Droppin’ Knowledge with Chef Marvin Woods, a program he and his business partner, Chadwick Boyd, have since implemented into the district’s nine high schools. Woods isn’t stopping there. “The goal is to grow this program and take it nationally,” he says. Here he talks about what he’s learned during his quest to build a better school lunch.
“The overall message is unifying community. Our approach to doing that is to start with the kids, which filters into the parents and then the entire community. We talk to parents and faculty about how if a movement is big and strong enough, corporate America will listen. They will wake up and do something different, instead of turning a blind eye to the rate of the epidemic of childhood obesity. People are saying we need to do something about this, but in truth, when you look at the food that is being served and the lack of initiative being taken to actually make change, it is turning a blind eye. The power is in the kids and in the people.
When I went into the schools I learned that because we’re in the information age, students are more aware and have more of an idea about certain things than I did growing up. That said, the students don’t know how to take that information and utilize it for their benefit. Schools should teach students how to be able to fend for themselves once they go into the real world. There is a disconnect there. I’m not saying everyone should be in culinary class, but when you get out of high school, you should have some basic food knowledge.
In November of 2006, I launched this program on my own. This past year, Sodexo, the district’s foodservice provider, joined up with me and I was able to expand the program to all nine high schools. The first step is training the managers and then the cafeteria workers. I go in for a day and basically have a version of culinary school. That’s what makes this program so unique is that we work with the staff and interact with the students. I also spend a day on the line serving.
I didn’t change the menu when I came. You can’t turn a battleship around on a dime. We have changed awareness and how things are executed, but we plan to change menus in the future. I focus on line presentation, batch cooking and recipe compliance and customer service.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. I am working to get the program started in other places, like Charlotte, N.C., where I own a restaurant. What I’ve learned from the Atlanta project that I am going to use moving forward, is that to really make a difference and fight childhood obesity, it requires everyone’s involvement, from sharpening cafeteria workers’ skills and developing new recipes using fresh ingredients, to actively engaging students and encouraging them to eat better and try new flavors and foods. As we expand, we will include our school assembly program that brings together the student body to teach them the 3 Fs of Food—flavor, fun, and friends and family. We also intend to create online content and develop curricula that teachers can use to take our message further.”