New PAC Lunch Program generates same revenues

Contact: Allison Ford, PAC Food Committee, Dorothy Lynas Elementary School, North Vancouver, BC School District 44
E-mail: forda@northvanrec.com Tel: 604.983.6394

Process:
When challenged with changing their menu to be in line with the new healthy food guidelines, they knew our food costs would likely be higher, and orders could possibly decline if students were hesitant to order new foods (and not be able to order some of the less healthy old favorites).

The food committee chose to time the re-launch of their food program at the same time as the new Guidelines and made a few changes to off-set the possibility of declining revenues:

1. Merged their two food programs “Fun Food Days” (which included menu items no longer allowed) and “Magic Lunchbox Days” (a healthy food program offered on alternate weeks but run separately) to make it easier for families to understand.
2. Put all orders into their online system to make it easier for parents to order so they might order more.
3. Changed from an irregular and hard to keep track of schedule to every Thursday so it was predictable and gave more days per year to raise funds.
4. Researched and selected fun, healthy alternatives which have proven very popular (especially Booster Juice).

People involved:
PAC Food Committee

Key changes/results:
After the first year following the new Guidelines for Food and beverage Sales in BC Schools, the PAC lunch program able to generate the same amount of funds for our school as we did on the previous program, even with higher food costs.

The food committee is in the process of evaluating the past year and a half to plan for the next year; results will be available in June 2010 regarding the fundraising success for 2009/2010.

Challenges:
We have had growing pains throughout the year.  The challenges have been:

1. sourcing new, healthy foods & suppliers who can manage a school of 600 students (difficult & time consuming)
2. needing more volunteers since we now offer food days more often (difficult and time consuming)
3. technology/problems with online order system (unpredictable and frustrating)