“We are required to adhere to the nutrition requirements in the USDA Meal Pattern. Although our model is very different from most schools, the Department of Education has been very supportive and interested in what we are doing. They may even eventually use ANCS as a model for other schools.”
Chef David BradleyA Word from Chef Bradley
“In 2014, I was working as the chef of Lure Restaurant in Midtown. It was engaging work, but in the back of my mind, I’d been having doubts about the long-term feasibility of being a chef and being a dad at the same time. When I heard through the grapevine that a charter school, which happened to be right across the street from my house, was looking for a chef, my initial thought was, “Thanks, but no thanks.” But I thought it was worth at least talking to the administrators about it, and every conversation we had was really interesting.
I was particularly excited about the opportunity to start from scratch and develop my own recipes and systems. Everything about it would be built from the ground up. I also liked the vision that Matt Underwood, Executive Director, and Kari Lovell, Director of Business and Operations had for the program. They were committed to supporting local foods and had big dreams for a school garden. So in 2014, I joined the staff of the Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School as its Chef and Nutrition Director.”
Excerpt from “Hungry Like the Wolves”
ANCS is proud to serve healthy, delicious meals using locally-sourced food to our students, teachers, and visitors.
We provide children the needed access to healthful foods in order to grow, learn, and thrive. We believe that good health fosters student attendance, a student’s ability to learn effectively and to achieve high standards in school. ANCS is committed to providing school environments that promote and protect children’s health, well-being, and ability to learn by supporting healthy eating. We prepare the meals we serve to our school from scratch whenever possible, and we source many of our ingredients from local sources, including our own school farm. Students have the opportunity to be involved in our meal program, from tending to the farm to planning recipes to working in the kitchen at each campus.
Our school’s commitment to sustainable living and healthy eating led us to establish a farm-to-school program several years ago. Our goal? To forge a vital link between the fresh, nutritious food served in our cafeteria and the very plants that flourish in our soil. This initiative included integrating gardening into the elementary curriculum and providing middle campus students with opportunities to cultivate their own food. In September 2021, we took this commitment a step further by establishing our school farm.
Sustainability in our Kitchen and Cafeteria
We strive to employ sustainable, responsible practices in all aspects of our nutrition program, and to share this ethos with our students, faculty and staff. This takes many forms, including:
Seasonal Menus
We feature fresh produce in season. This means lots of fresh tomatoes, watermelons, and other wonderful summer produce when we start school; Georgia apples, pears, hard squashes and more in the fall and early winter; a wider variety of citrus fruits in the winter and spring and a greater reliance on storage crops like local sweet potatoes until sugar snap peas and tender greens make it onto the menu as we finish out the school year.
Eating Less Meat
We have had Meatless Monday in place for the past 8 years and usually 1 or 2 other lunch menus in a given week are fully vegetarian, too. We make frequent use of plant-based meat analogs in recipes that we originally wrote for ground beef or turkey, and haven’t served any beef in over 3 years.
Growing Our Own
We have a substantial school farm that produces wonderful ingredients for our kitchen. Students are involved from seed to harvest, learning about their role in our ecosystems, the life cycles of plants, pollinators and pests, and how much better really fresh food tastes.
Buying Local
We have long purchased from local producers beyond our own school farm to strengthen the local food community and support GA farmers that are working sustainably and to reduce the carbon footprint of what we are serving.
Reducing Food Waste
We are always looking for creative ways to reduce or eliminate food waste, like incorporating unserved baked sweet potatoes in our own Sweet Potato Pie granola, or partnering with a local company to turn our spent fryer oil into renewable fuels. Completing a pre-order each week is one small way you can contribute, too. Knowing just how much we need to make before we order or prep something helps us to reduce the amount of waste we generate.
Composting
We compost organic waste from our kitchen and cafeterias with CompostNow. Students are involved with making choices around food waste and packaging issues each and every school day. We are also an official CompostNow Garden Partner, so if your family is a member, too, and wish to donate some of your compost to the school, please do so here (scroll down, click Atlanta, and click the link under schools in Fulton Co).
Packaging
We use either compostable service ware and utensils or reusable/washable trays and silver for meal service. We have eliminated single-use plastics (no straws, no disposable cups, no plastic spoons/knives/forks) from our program.
Picky eaters are always an issue both at school and at home. Our hope is that repetition will help. A skeptical child might not try something the first time around, but if they see other students enjoying it, maybe next time they will try it.
Wellness Policy
Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School (ANCS) desires to provide children the needed access to healthful foods and opportunities to be physically active in order to grow, learn, and thrive. ANCS believes that good health fosters student attendance, a student’s ability to learn effectively and to achieve high standards in school. ANCS is committed to providing school environments that promote and protect children’s health, well-being, and ability to learn by supporting healthy eating and physical activity.
Every three years (or more often if the district desires), the district must conduct an assessment of the wellness policy that is made available to the public. The evaluation must address:
- Compliance with the district policy
- The extent to which the local wellness policy compares to the Model Wellness Policy
- Progress made in attaining the goals of the wellness policy
In accordance with federal civil rights law and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) civil rights regulations and policies, this institution is prohibited from discriminating on the basis of race, color, national origin, sex (including gender identity and sexual orientation), disability, age, or reprisal or retaliation for prior civil rights activity.
Program information may be made available in languages other than English. Persons with disabilities who require alternative means of communication to obtain program information (e.g., Braille, large print, audiotape, American Sign Language), should contact the responsible state or local agency that administers the program or USDA’s TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TTY) or contact USDA through the Federal Relay Service at (800) 877-8339.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider.
To file a program discrimination complaint, a Complainant should complete a Form AD- 3027, USDA Program Discrimination Complaint Form which can be obtained online here, from any USDA office, by calling (866) 632-9992, or by writing a letter addressed to USDA. The letter must contain the complainant’s name, address, telephone number, and a written description of the alleged discriminatory action in sufficient detail to inform the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights (ASCR) about the nature and date of an alleged civil rights violation. The completed AD-3027 form or letter must be submitted to USDA by:
- mail: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, SW Washington, D.C. 20250-9410; or
- fax: (833) 256-1665 or (202) 690-7442; or
- email: program.intake@usda.gov