Meet Susan Lacy: School Food Service Director at Stoneham Public School

Susan Lacy is the School Food Service Director for the Stoneham Public School district in Stoneham, Mass. This is her story.

If you would like to TAKE ACTION and help people like Susan get junk foods out of schools, go to this link and choose Urge Education Officials to Support School Foods Reform.

March 2, 2006

On one of our initial visits to Stoneham High School, on March 2, 2006, we found out how Susan managed to serve healthy—and tasty—food. Using a mix of USDA commodity foods and local farms’ food, Susan was serving healthy choices every day. Her menus were so good, even the teachers were buying lunch!

“You can just taste that it’s homemade. It doesn’t have that cafeteria-type flavor.”

—Student

“I eat a lot of junk food, so it’s nice to know that my lunch is healthy.”

—Student

Susan explained, “We are pretty successful at using our leftovers, when there are any, and turning them into a dish that has no resemblance to the original. We make house-made soups, packaged salads, and packaged sandwiches every day for the high school, and on a somewhat smaller scale at the middle school. We also have a traditional salad bar that is open daily.”

We asked Susan what would make her job easier. She told us, “Make my job easier? Definitely more funding and a larger budget and more selections on our commodities list.”

Stoneham High School Lunch Menu Options: March 2, 2006

* Eggplant Rolatini

* Fresh Tomato Basil Tortellini Soup

* Greek Pasta Salad (on a bed of lettuce with house-made red wine vinaigrette)

* Rotini Pasta (tossed with olive oil and fresh basil)

* Pulled BBQ Chicken Sandwiches (on a French roll, served with house-made, low-fat coleslaw)

* Oven-Fried Chicken with Cranberry Sauce

* Mashed Potatoes (seasoned with a real butter and herb mix made from scratch)

* Peas

* Wheat Dinner Rolls

* Fresh Fruit

May 2006

Susan enters year-end budgeting and has a slight deficit, but she is blamed for a disproportionate deficit due to the fact that she was asked to raise $150,000 to cover the health insurance of her staff.

As a result, Susan is not sure whether she will have a job to come back to after the summer. Susan contemplates whether or not she will go back even if she can.

 

June 2006

Parents Against Junk Food Founder, Christopher Kimball, shoots a documentary about Susan Lacy and her school lunch battle. The purpose of the documentary is to gain support from key U.S. Senators for the School Lunch Protection Act.

Click here to watch the 5 minute documentary.

Susan’s message to the senators:

“Pay more attention to fresh fruits and vegetables, offer less encouragement to processed foods, and provide some more funding so we can support ourselves and buy foods that we think would be the right choices for the kids.”

September 2006

Days before the school year begins, Susan finds out that she still has a job.

Susan is asked to decrease expenditures and increase revenue. Staff reductions take place and some of her staff quit.

The “New” Food

The biggest change: Susan sells burgers and chicken patties wrapped in foil bags with French fries in a more "fast food" manner to generate more money. (Last year, she served individual the burgers with a side salad.)

At both the high school and middle school, more snack foods have been re-introduced and Susan has noticed that kids will buy an assortment of snacks instead of lunch; this is what she was trying to avoid last year by only serving a minimal number of healthy snacks.

 

The good news: Susan makes her own pizza using shells purchased from a local pizza shop and uses a mixture of commodity (from the government) mozzarella, cheddar, and canned tomatoes. The price to produce a 4 by 6-inch slice of pizza is about 23 cents. Buying a prepared frozen product costs almost double that.

She also continues to make her homemade soups every day, using leftovers and government commodities and some fresh produce. These soups are also less costly and much healthier than prepackaged soups.

November 2006

Susan and her staff continue to work while the school administrators decide if they will switch to a private food-service company. If the school decides to hire an outside vendor, Susan will have to look for another job.

One of the high school students has started  a petiton in support of Susan as the School Food Service Director of Stoneham Public Schools. He plans to present his petition at an upcoming School Committee meeting.

Please check back for more updates…

To take action, click here.

If you have any encouraging words for Susan, send us an email at PAJF@parentsagainstjunkfood.org.

Thank you.