Denver Public Schools

Project Description

The After School Wellness Stand Gets Kids to Try Something New

Centennial Elementary School set up a Wellness Stand at four different school events with the goal of exposing students and their families to fruits and vegetables in an exciting way. The wellness stand replaced the traditional snack bar at an Arts Night, the school Carnival, a Celebration of Learning event, and the school Field Day.

Christian adds that the Wellness Stand was a great venue. “Students were able to talk to each other about their favorite food sample. Our greatest success was getting students to not be afraid of kale and other greens,” she says. In fact, some students have since requested kale on the salad bar, as well as apricots, mangos, cherries, peppers, plums and more smoothie samples.

Successes

• The Wellness Stand was very popular among the students who were eager to try the fresh fruits and vegetables.

Challenges

• The Wellness Stand often ran out of samples because the healthy produce was so well-liked by student participants.
• Centennial staff found it difficult to consistently recruit parent volunteers to help run the Wellness Stand at each school event.
• It was challenging for volunteers and staff to accurately record how many students visited the Wellness Stand at each event.