We are very proud to present our newest community program: sweetgreen in schools. This is an exciting way for us to get involved in our communities and teach kids about the importance of eating healthy! sweetgreen in schools is a series of interactive, educational nutrition education classes where students will learn key messages about nutrition, health, and “where food comes from” through hands-on activities. The series will culminate in a final project and students will create personalized salads to share with their families, and compete to see which is the tastiest! We will also invite the classes on a field trip to one of our store locations to see professional chefs developing and serving salads to customers.
In this month’s lesson, “Eat the Rainbow!” classes prepare salads using a colorful variety of fresh fruits and vegetables and discuss the nutrients and health benefits of each. This past Friday marked the inaugural sweetgreen in schools held at Garfield Elementary in southeast DC. Adorable 9 and 10 year olds were hesitant at first to try some of the ingredients (tomato, carrot, corn, kale, beets and local feta cheese), but gobbled the salads down once they were all mixed together. They were even willing to taste raw beets and were surprised by its crunchy sweet flavor. The kids loved our krispy kale, discovering a new kind of “chip”, and while they craved ranch dressing, they enjoyed balsamic vinaigrette more than they ever thought.