Recipe #7: Education and Engagement
Achieving a heightened sense of health and wellness in our lunch program is a key point of our Dining Hall vision outlined in Recipe #1 – but we need to ensure our students come along for the ride. To achieve this we intend to take a broad, multi-faceted approach.
First of all, eating healthy and being mindful about what we eat does not mean our students have to give up flavour, personal preference or fun. We will look to eat well with “better-for-you” foods that are just as delicious as they are healthy.
We will also engage the School in a Healthy for Life™ education and awareness campaign that speaks to students in terms they can relate to. The four major tenants of this program are:
- Enable: by providing a broad selection of great tasting, healthy and sustainably sourced food, with readily available nutritional information and student friendly “get the good stuff” labelling.
- Educate: by providing actionable nutrition and wellness information in an age-appropriate manner to create a foundation of knowledge leading to informed choices.
- Encourage: by making healthy eating top-of-mind every day and by making healthy and sustainable choices appealing and interesting.
- Engage: by building active participation in healthy eating initiatives (making use of our teaching kitchen for example) and sustainability (urban cultivator, fair trade initiatives, school garden, composting, etc.).
We have included a glimpse at just some of the initial marketing materials (below) we will use to help us reach the student audience.
Finally, we will consciously and continually seek the feedback of our students as to what their preferences are in terms of how best to deliver on the promise of helping them make healthy food choices.
Next week’s recipe will shed further light on how we will ensure our vision becomes reality through a new dining hall committee, as well as introduce the community to our food services partner.
Land Acknowledgment
The Country Day School wishes to recognize and acknowledge the land on which the school operates. Our nearest Indigenous Nations are now the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation and the Chippewas of Georgina Island. The Dish with One Spoon Wampum covenant is often cited as an example of the shared responsibility for caring for these lands among the Huron-Wendat, Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee peoples who would call these their traditional territories. CDS respects the relationship with these lands and recognizes that our connection to this land can be strengthened by our continued relationship with all First Nations, by acknowledging our shared responsibility to respect and care for the land and waters for future generations.
School Information
13415 Dufferin Street King, Ontario L7B 1K5
(905) 833-1220
communications@cds.on.ca
admissions@cds.on.ca
Founded in 1972, The Country Day School is a co-educational private school offering programs in JK-12 and located on 100 acres north of Toronto in King.
(905) 833-1220
communications@cds.on.ca
admissions@cds.on.ca
Founded in 1972, The Country Day School is a co-educational private school offering programs in JK-12 and located on 100 acres north of Toronto in King.
