Darla Coss was bracing for the worst when her son Kevin started kindergarten at Plymouth Creek Elementary last year. It wasn’t the educational aspect; it was what he’d be served at school lunches.

Coss was concerned, as many parents are, that her kids would be faced with meals filled with sugar and highly processed foods.

“I thought I was going to have huge issues,” Coss says. “But I haven’t.”

She’s been more than pleasantly surprised, in part because of the innovative programs the Wayzata schools have to offer, particularly the Farm2School program and the Global Neighborhood program, which is new for the 2009–10 school year.

The Farm2school program, which has been in place for several years under different names, uses produce from local growers in its school meals programs. 

Culinary Express director Mary Anderson says the program was spurred in part by the “5 a day” campaign to get kids to eat more fresh fruits and vegetables. But she also thinks it’s important that kids understand where their food comes from. The program also helps keep money circulating in the local economy, and she means local: “We have beets from Anoka, sweet corn from Stillwater,” she says. Another benefit is environmental, because apples trucked in from, say, Delano, uses less fuel than, say, peaches flown in from California.

The new Global Neighborhood program seeks to reflect the many ethnic traditions present in the district, as well as incorporate an optional element of physical activity. The program, which began in October, features a different dish each month from one of the traditions represented by students at the school. The first offering was chicken enchildadas from Mexico; for November, the dish of the month was beef stroganoff, reflecting the children of Russian extraction who attend schools in the district. Lefse was featured in December, Indian chicken curry in January, and for February, chicken suquaar from Somalia. 

Parallel with the menu offerings, the program allows a “virtual” walk around the world that tours the capitals of each country whose cuisine is featured. It “starts” in Wayzata, goes to Mexico City, then Moscow, Oslo, New Delhi, Mogadishu, Vientiane (Laos), Beirut and Beijing, to represent all the featured countries. 

Children—and teachers and staff—can rack up one virtual mile walked for every 15 minutes of activity, Anderson says. So Rosita can chalk up 4 “miles” for the hour she spends playing hockey on a winter weekend; Mohammed can add 2 “miles” for the 30 minutes he spent playing soccer at recess. The totals for each school are added up weekly and tabulated on the Culinary Express webpage.