New England Produce Council donates salad bar to East Boston High

(New England Produce Council)

Bob McGowan, president of the New England Produce Council, board member Bill Brophy, Executive Director Laura Sullivan, First Vice President Tom Murray, and board member Bob Duperre presented the salad bar to students at East Boston High School in a ceremony Thursday.

By Jeremy C. Fox, Town Correspondent

The New England Produce Council has donated a salad bar to East Boston High School as part of the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools program.

The program works to provide salad bars to schools nationwide and encourage children to eat fresh, healthy fruits and vegetables. The produce council learned of the program in 2011 through a presentation by the president of the United Fresh Produce Association, a founding partner of the program.

The produce council’s board of directors wanted their first recipient to be an inner-city school. Five students from East Boston High, called the Healthy Hood Girls, worked on the application for the salad bar under the guidance of a coordinator from Let’s Get Movin’, the anti-obesity program for children and teens at East Boston Neighborhood Health Center.

“Our objective is to donate an electrical salad bar unit each year to a school within the New England area,” said Laura Sullivan, executive director of the produce council, in a statement.

The National Fruit and Vegetable Alliance, United Fresh Produce Association Foundation, and Food Family Farming Foundation launched the Let’s Move Salad Bars to Schools program in 2010 in concert with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! initiative. The first recipient was Riverside Elementary School in Miami, Fla.

Email Jeremy C. Fox at jeremycfox@gmail.com.
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