Throughout the month of March, the Duval County Public Schools Nutrition Department focused on celebrating National Nutrition Month and gathering student feedback. Highlights from the month include:

National Nutrition Month
We really leaned into this year’s theme, “Celebrate a World of Flavors,” by creating dietitian-led videos and recipe videos highlighting examples of healthy globally-inspired foods, discussing their origin, explaining typical diets, and giving examples of popular dishes native to the culture.

On social media, we encouraged the community to submit general questions about nutrition to our “Ask a Dietitian” webpage for our team of dietitians to answer. Wednesdays were dedicated to providing nutrition education for #WellnessWednesdays. The last week of March, our followers were encouraged to “Guess this Dish” as we highlighted dishes from around the world to see if anyone could identify them. Once identified, we shared information on the dish’s origin and links to recipes.

The district invited us to create a booth for their annual Employee Wellness Fair on March 11. Our chefs served samples of our chicken and vegetable pasta primavera while our dietitians encouraged attendees to play “Guess the Grain” to try to correctly identify four different grains for a chance to win seeds from our local farm partners. The highlight of our booth was the farmer's market in which attendees were able to take home fresh, local produce.

Gathering Feedback
On a constant quest to improve our program, we’ve turned our focus back to conducting in-school events to gather feedback. This March, we held focus groups with secondary students and created an online food service suggestion inbox encouraging students to continue to provide feedback.

Looking forward, we plan to host Student Choice sampling events at a handful of our high schools to allow them an opportunity to help choose menu items.