When they line up for lunch these days, students at Pioneer Elementary School in Davis are more excited than usual about their food. In addition to the standard two-entrée selection, they can now choose the new farmers' market "Crunch Lunch" salad bar option, a complete meal that includes locally grown vegetables and fruits.

"Crunch lunch rocks! I want to eat it every day," says a third-grader, loading her tray with a rainbow of lettuce and spinach, blood oranges, cheese, turkey ham, cottage cheese and strawberries.

That's just the reaction salad bar organizers want to hear.

To mark the successful launch of the salad bar program, now entering it's fourth week at Pioneer, an official "crunch lunch" grand opening will be held Thursday, April 12, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

The celebration will include:
-- tours of the student gardens, including the compost area and vermiculture (worm) composting bins;
-- tours of the student lunch recycling project;
-- and an exhibit of students' garden-related art.

"We're thrilled the kids are enjoying something that combines a way to improve their eating habits with an awareness of where their food comes from," says Page Lee Webb, a member of the Davis Farm to School Connection, which has been instrumental in establishing the salad bar.

Parents, educators and community members worked together for more than a year raising money to establish salad bars in area schools and link them to garden curriculum, composting and recycling activities and tours of local farms.

Pioneer is the first Davis school to open a salad bar; César Chávez Elementary School in Central Davis will open its salad bar next month. As more funds become available, the goal of the community organization is to open a salad bar in every school in the district.

The Pioneer School salad bar option is a complete meal including six to eight seasonal vegetables or fruits, and two or three protein-rich foods such as eggs, tuna fish, beans and turkey.

"The farmers' market salad bar at Pioneer builds on our vision of a garden in every school where the kids are growing healthy food and have a chance to see some of the same seasonal fresh foods grown by local farmers at their school lunch counter," says Delaine Eastin, state superintendent of public instruction. "This experience reinforces what they're learning in the garden -- fresh fruits and vegetables are good to eat and are part of a healthy diet. That's critical as we track an alarming trend in childhood obesity."

"We've seen in Santa Monica and in Berkeley that getting fresh produce into the schools also benefits small- and medium-sized farms," says Gail Feenstra, a food-systems analyst at the UC Davis-based statewide Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program (SAREP). She is evaluating the salad bar through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Initiative for Future Agriculture and Food Systems.

"It's exciting for our statewide program to be involved in this Davis effort to help kids eat well and see where their food comes from, " said Feenstra, who's program has funded a related report, "Healthy Farms, Healthy Kids."

Sheri Zidenberg-Cherr, a Cooperative Extension nutrition specialist at UC Davis, also is doing an overlapping evaluation for the project for the California Department of Education's SHAPE Program to encourage healthy eating and improve student nutrition through farmers' market salad bars and school gardens.

And Carol Hillhouse, director of the UC Davis Children's Garden at the Student Experimental Farm, is coordinating teacher training for the school gardens through the SHAPE grant.

Additionally, the California Integrated Waste Management Board, is funding projects aimed at stimulating composting projects and reducing waste from lunch programs. Worm composting projects are in place at both Pioneer and César Chávez elementary schools.

Electronic images of salad bar activity and student gardens can be obtained from Lyra Halprin at the Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program at UC Davis, (530) 752-8664 or lhalprin@ucdavis.edu.

Media contacts:
-- Gail Feenstra, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, UC Davis, (530) 752-8408, gwfeenstra@ucdavis.edu
-- Renata Brillinger, Davis Joint Unified School District farmers' market salad bar coordinator, (530) 757-5300, ext. 223; rbrillinger@djusd.k12.ca.us
-- Jamie Buffington, Pioneer School garden/recycling coordinator, (530) 757-2685, jbgardener@aol.com
-- Page Lee Webb, Davis Farm to School Connection, (530) 753-0968, Spider9181@aol.com
-- Lyra Halprin, Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education Program, UC Davis, (530) 752-8664, lhalprin@ucdavis.edu