By: centraljersey.com
Hightstown High School was named a winner of the Eat Right, Move More contest this week by New York Jets offensive tackle D’Brickashaw Ferguson and state Secretary of Agriculture Douglas H. Fisher. Schools in Netcong, Haledon, Jersey City and Lakewood were also named winners.
The Eat Right, Move More program, a partnership between the Jets, the Department of Agriculture and the American Dairy Association & Dairy Council’s Fuel Up to Play 60 campaign, encourages New Jersey school children to take advantage of healthy foods in their school cafeterias and become more active. This year, the winning schools were chosen that best met the criteria established for the Healthier U.S. School Challenge Program. Additionally, school lunch and breakfast menus were reviewed and the schools had to show strong support and demonstrate efforts to improve nutrition and physical activity among their students.
This is the fifth year of the Eat Right, Move More Program, with D’Brickashaw Ferguson as spokesman. The campaign features posters of Ferguson in every school telling students, "Eating healthy meals helps me play my best. Your school cafeteria has a variety of nutritious foods to keep you going all day long. So let’s get up and Eat Right and Move More!"
"Each year I am more impressed with the level of participation and the creativity of the schools involved in the Eat Right, Move More program," Mr. Ferguson said in a statement.
This week, he and Secretary Fisher visited the grand-prize winner, Netcong Elementary School, for a special program. They also presented the school with a check for a $5,000 kitchen makeover, made possible by the Jets and the American Dairy Association & Dairy Council’s Fuel Up to Play 60 campaign. School officials plan to use the money to purchase a stove, refrigerator/freezer unit and supplies that will allow them to provide more fresh food alternatives to the children and staff, according to the Department of Agriculture.
The other winning schools, including Hightstown High School, will receive visits from Jets players in the spring. The schools are: Haledon Public School, Haledon; P.S. 25, Nicolaus Copernicus School, Jersey City; and Oak Street School, Lakewood.
Programs funded by the New York Jets Foundation touch the lives of countless young men and women in the tri-state area. Over the past nine years, the Jets and their charitable foundation have donated or contributed more than $8 million to promote youth health, fitness and education, particularly in disadvantaged communities. From fighting childhood obesity through the Generation Jets: Be Lean & Green initiative to launching a football team in a Harlem high school, urging students to eat right and move more, and supporting the efforts of the Alliance for Lupus Research, the New York Jets invest in programs that make a difference in the lives of others. In addition to the Jets Foundation, which supports their own extensive youth initiatives, the Jets partner with numerous established charitable organizations and participate in causes sponsored by the NFL.
The Department of Agriculture’s comprehensive school nutrition policy covers pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students. The policy limits fat and sugar content in foods offered in a la carte lines, snack bars and vending machines, school stores and as part of on-campus fund-raisers.
More than 673,000 students in both public and private schools participate in the National School Lunch Program, administered by the Department of Agriculture. For more information about the Department’s school nutrition programs, visit www.nj.gov/agriculture/divisions/fn/childadult/school.html.
"Through the Eat Right, Move More program, students throughout the state are seeing that eating nutritious foods, like what is offered in their school cafeterias, and exercising will benefit them as adults," Secretary Fisher said in a statement. "We congratulate Netcong Elementary School and the other schools for creatively following our state’s school nutrition standards and developing programs for students, staff and parents that increase their activity levels and teach about good nutrition."
