The Veggiecation Program Gets Students to Eat Their Vegetables

Innovative Curriculum Lunch Program Works with Educators to Teach Students Importance of Health and Nutrition and Develop a Love for Vegetables.

RIDGEWOOD, NJ (August, 2010) – The Veggiecation Program, a curriculum based lunch program, introduces young students to the delicious world of vegetables while teaching them the importance of health and nutrition. As the only curriculum based school lunch program of its kind, Veggiecation provides teachers with adaptable lessons and supporting materials that can be seamlessly integrated into existing lesson plans. With its educational and interactive student-centric activities, Veggiecation incorporates kid-friendly vegetable preparations into each lesson and empowers students to expand their horizons while simultaneously improving their nutritional status.

Veggiecation is available as a 9-month program to private and public schools. Lessons can be customized for individual classroom requirements, and cross-content activities can be adapted for science, literacy, art, social sciences, math and physical education. Program materials include a seasonal vegetable lunchtime lesson plan with corresponding recipes for school service managers; classroom companion books with lessons to fulfill state curriculum requirements for grades one through three; Veggie of the Month informational posters that include science, nutrition and geography lessons; “Veggiecation Across the Nation” theme song in CD as well as lyrics and sheet music; reward stickers for students; take home recipe books with recipes adapted for family servings; Veggiecation lunchroom box ballot materials; and member’s only access to Veggiecation’s online classroom resources and tutorial videos for teachers, parents and students. The Veggiecation Program starts at $675 and a fee of $5 per child, which includes Veggiecation materials for up to three classrooms and materials for students to take home. Additional materials can be purchased individually.

“I was fortunate to be raised in a household where we always had access to fresh vegetables. Healthy and nutritious food is not only a passion of my family, and mine but also, it’s our business,” comments Lisa Suriano, owner and founder of Veggiecation. “Our family business is food service management for independent schools. Early on I saw the positive effects that good food and proper nutrition had on students. I was placed in a unique position where I could make a difference in our schools’ lunch programs so I created Veggiecation to help our schools combat childhood obesity and re-introduce nutrition into the classroom. I developed Veggiecation so that it is cost effective for many schools, and one of my goals was to provide teachers with a fun, easy tool to teach young students that eating vegetables is not only important for their health, but also, vegetables are delicious and fun.”

Veggiecation is the only curriculum based school lunch program of its kind, providing educators with cost-effective, adaptable lessons and supporting materials to teach young students that eating vegetables is fun, healthy and nutritious. For more information on the Veggiecation Program, please visit www.veggiecation.com.

About Veggiecation

The Veggiecation Program is a curriculum based lunch program that introduces young students to the delicious and nutritious world of vegetables. Utilizing existing school resources to minimize costs and seamlessly integrate Veggiecation into the classroom and school lunch programs, Veggiecation incorporates kid-friendly vegetable preparations into each lesson. Veggiecation can be adapted into lesson plans for science, literacy, art, social sciences, math and physical education as well as school wide assemblies. Veggiecation has been successfully implemented in schools, such as The Cathedral School of St. John the Divine (New York, NY) and The Riverdale Country School (Bronx, NY). Veggiecation will soon be available at The Greenwich Country Day School (Greenwich, CT), The Packer Collegiate School (Brooklyn, NY) and the Belmont Day School (Belmont, MA).