Students at a local high school are learning there is in fact such a thing as a free lunch.
Every Wednesday for the next eight weeks, students at Superior Collegiate and Vocational Institute can help themselves to a free salad bar during their lunch hour.
Mat Lesnick, a Grade 11 student who’s part of the school’s Food for Thought program, said the idea has been a hit so far. When this year’s program began last week, more than 100 students came through the door of Superior’s food classroom.
The salad bar was gone half-way through lunch.
The free samples of smoothies, made by student volunteers, don’t last long either he added.
The lunch time program began last year along with Food for Thought after Ontario schools learned that healthier food was going to be implemented in cafeterias.
“Now that the changes are done we decided that we were going to come back this year and do more healthy living healthy lifestyles,” Lesnick said.
The salad bar also served as a good place for the Thunder Bay District Health Unit to announce a $25,000 grant from Ontario’s Heart and Stroke Foundation to the Healthy Eating Makes the Grade partnership. Public health nutritionist Janice Piper said the money will go towards advocacyy for healthy eating for local students.
“It involves a number of players at a whole variety of levels,” she said. “It involves students. It involves teaching staff. It involves administers, food suppliers and producers.”
It will also help programs like Superior’s salad bar.
“They’re encouraging students to try new foods and get turned on to healthy choices,” Piper said.
