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Dear Dairy
November 1, 2010
The Elementary School Milk Program brings communities together
Bright and early in the cool morning hours, while your children are still tucked in their nice, warm beds, the milk trucks are already delivering to their schools, across Ontario and the Maritimes. That is when dairy distributors deliver cases of nutritious mild straight to school refrigerators. It's all part and parcel of the cycle that makes the Elementary School Milk Program such as success.
An initiative of the Dairy Farmers of Canada, the Elementary School Milk Program helps students meet Canada's Food Guide recommendation of two daily servings of milk and alternatives of children aged 2 to 8 years, and three to four daily servings for children 9 to 13 years old. The program involves a community-wide group of participants, starting with the Canadian cows and farmers who provide the milk to dairies and ending with the volunteers and staff who help students get a delicious serving of cold milk at school.
The Elementary School Milk Program is a not-for-profit project whose goal is to help kids stay healthy, focused and energized throughout the day. "Milk still remains king nutritionally when you consider the balance between fat, protein, sugar, calcium and vitamins," says Stephen Quickert, president of Reid's Dairy in Belleville, Ont. "It's also our most stringently monitored food in Canada. You can't beat it and why would you? It tastes great!"
Reid's Dairy is just one of the Five Star Dairies involved in the Ontario Elementary School Milk Program. As Quickert explains, "Our role in the Five Star program as a dairy provider is to promote dairy nutrition in our elementary schools."
The Five Star program helps schools organize proper storage refrigerators for the milk. As well, it provides educational and organizational support materials for busy in-school Milk Coordinators like Debbie Morden at Centennial Central Public School, which draws its students from Comber, Ont., and surrounding small towns.
Many Centennial Central students are bussed in and have their lunch at school. As a result, the school has becomes a community hub, and as a Milk Coordinator, Morden is right in the middle of it all. She organizes all of the milk orders - getting the forms to students through their teachers, keeping track of the money, ordering and, with the assistance of fellow teacher Kelly Hensley-Bugeja and student volunteers, delivering the milk to the classrooms before lunch.
Delivering the milk from refrigerator to classroom makes student volunteers feel involved in the school community.
"I have always taught special education here at Centennial Central," says Morden, "and the milk program has allowed many of our special-needs students to take part in a school activity - by delivering the milk, helping to count the money and feeling as if they too are making a difference within the school."
It's well worth the effort for Morden, who become a Milk Coordinator four years ago. "I love that the students have fresh milk available to them over pop or energy drinks. I've always supported the in-school milk program, as my own son took part in it when he was in elementary school."
There's only one thing that Morden would like to change about the Milk Program: she wants to get more students involved. Over the years, she's noticed that if you can get kids drinking milk early, they often keep ordering it even after they leave elementary school. She has also observed that the number of children who participate in the program has remained steady, and she'd like that number to go up.
Reid's Dairy operator Quickert recalls how his kids helped run the program when they were young, and as a parent, he believes that the more moms and dads get involved - whether as volunteers or by signing up their children - the bigger the benefit for everyone. Besides delivering milk, the program also teaches kids about nutrition.
Most importantly, participation in the program helps open up dialogue about nutrition between kids and adults. "Many students know me as the teacher that looks after the milk," says Morden, "which allows me to encourage them to continue to choose healthier optioins for lunch."
From the archive:
Lessons Learned
The Milky Way