Russellville schools recognize National School Lunch Week

By Staff
Melissa Cason
The Russellville City Schools acknowledged this week as National School Lunch Week.
Child Nutrition Program Coordinator Elaine Vaughn said school lunches are not like they used to be. Lunches must meet the 1995 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which recommend no more than 30 percent of an individual's calories come from fat, and less than 10 percent from saturated fat.
Regulations also state that school lunches must provide one-third of the recommended daily allowances of protein, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, iron, calcium, and calories.
"Our lunchroom employees do a great job at making sure our students get their nutritional needs met while they are at school," Vaughn said.
Vaughn said Russellville City School System serves over 2,000 lunches per day.
"This week is National School Lunch Week, so our staff tried to have some of the student's favorite foods all during the week," Vaughn said.
The National School Lunch Program is a federally assisted meal program operating in over 101,000 public and non-profit private schools and residential childcare institutions. It provides nutritionally balanced, low-cost or free lunches to more than 30.5 million children each day in 2009. In 1998, Congress expanded the National School Lunch Program to include reimbursement for snacks served to children in after school educational and enrichment program to include children through 18 years of age.
Vaughn said lunch at Russellville Middle School and Russellville High School cost $1.75, and elementary students pay $1.50 for lunch.
The school cafeterias also serve breakfast daily to all students and have an after school educational program at three of the schools where snacks are provided.