Week 2, Day 4 (May 16th)

Today was a really productive day and I learned a lot! I went around with Jessica, Nutrition Education Specialist to different middle and high schools in the city to check in with their servers and survey some students. This morning I got the survey that we were going to use ready for the day, and then headed down to our first stop at Marina Middle School. We arrived at MMS quite a while before their lunch period, so we just had a check in with the head meal server. She spoke very highly of Revolution Foods, telling us that things were going smoothly for her- just what we wanted to hear! She also told us that the kids really like the food and they are always asking for more.
We then went over to Francisco Middle School where we arrived right at the beginning of their lunch period. We passed out the surveys for the students to take, but many of them were reluctant or said no to taking the survey. We ended up getting about 40 or so back, but it was a little disappointing to have kids tell us no. On the surveys from FMS, many kids put that they didn't enjoy the food, which lead me to a thought about culture. In a place like San Francisco where there is so much diversity in culture from neighborhood to neighborhood, it's difficult to find common ground around food. FNS happen to be predominately Asian and the kids there seemed to prefer the lunches of their friends who brought them from home and prepared by their parents. And although I didn't go to schools in any other neighborhood today, it seems to me that this would be the case at any school, depending on the cultures prevalent there. One of the challenged of Revolution Foods is to find this common ground, especially across San Francisco where, because of ease and logistics, the food is the same across every San Francisco Public school for that day.
Lastly, we went to Galileo High School to check in with their server and since lunch was ending, we did not have enough time to collect surveys there. Their head server also spoke fairly highly of Revolution Foods, but told us that he has a hard time getting the students to eat the vegetables offered everyday. Jessica told him that Rev. Foods was working on engagement programs to help kids want to eat them (with out Ranch :)).

Now, I am leaving for my Catalina trip for Marine Bio, so I won't be working tomorrow or have a blog post, but I'll be back at it on Monday to power out my third week. Wow- I can't believe how fast time is passing these days. I guess time flies when you're working hard and having fun!