Briscoe Elementary
Team Nutrition Leader: Ms. De Los Santos, 4th grade Bilingual teacher
RFS Team Leader: Chef Veronica Alford (Ronnie)
RFS programming began - September 2006
Number of children served each month: 241 PreK-2nd grade students receive gardening classes once a month; 65 fourth graders participate twice each month-once for Chefs in Schools™ and once for gardening
Other Programming: Weekly after school cooking classes for parents-Eat This, Baby!™
RFS Chefs in Schools™ at Briscoe:
Scott Castel, Brenners
Barbara Mcknight, Catering by Culinaire
Giancarlo Ferrara, Arcodoro
Bryan Caswell, Reef
Brendon Trenor, Reef
Michael Dimaggi, Rockwood Room
Volunteer Activities and projects coordinated and/or implemented on campus by RFS with our Partners:
January 2008 - parent and child volunteer garden day with 15 volunteers to clean up old garden beds
October 2009 - 80 GE Volunteers built extensive gardens, planted trees, built garden sheds and benches.
The Briscoe Recipe Garden includes a 400 square foot courtyard garden we designed for the kindergarteners and four 15x4 foot raised beds for other grade levels.
RFS works to enhance our programs at Briscoe through collaboration with Can Do Houston
Wellness Committee Update from Briscoe: We have worked on beautifying our school campus, working out a water schedule for the garden, putting together a whether station for all science teachers to use, and empowering the teachers to use garden as a part of their day. WE have also participated in a collaborative wellness outreach with CanDo.
We know our message is getting through in part because: The most stubborn student we ever encountered at Briscoe had a Mom who brought him a fast food lunch in the middle of our cooking class every month, all year long. He refused to taste anything from class and would drop out of activity to concentrate on his burger or fried chicken. During the last class of the year, our Iron Chef Competition, he participated in the whole process for the first time--excited, engaged. His Mom walked in with his lunch as usual, but this time he refused it. He turned away from his Mom and vigorously shook his head, no! Here we thought that he had not been paying attention all year, but he decided on his own that he no longer wanted the fast food lunch. He sat there with a big smile on his face and really enjoyed the healthy meal he had just created with his fellow students.
Chef Ronnie reports: - "RFS has helped create a different awareness at Briscoe, from the healthy eating messages we have posted throughout the hallways and cafeteria to our beautiful Recipe Gardens. The teachers now want to get out of their classrooms more often and into the gardens to stretch their students minds and make the garden a regular part of the day. I encourage them to use the garden for simple things like taking the class outside to read, going on a bug hunt, or observing the life cycles of caterpillars. As a result, he students are learning responsibility and respect for their plants, and flowers."
