School Nutrition Program
EATING THE RAINBOW
Hello and welcome! My name is Sharon Pesner and I am the creator of the Eating the Rainbow School Nutrition Program. This website came about because of the demand from parents who learned about this program from friends, and wanted to be able to bring Eating the Rainbow to their own school.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I am the mother of 2 children, a girl 10 years and a boy 8 years. I wanted to bring them up with healthy eating habits but I felt that every time they left the house, someone was trying to feed them sugary, fast or processed foods. Somehow, these foods were “cool” and more appealing than anything healthy.
I thought to myself, “Why can’t eating fruits and vegetables be cool and appealing?” So…I came up with a simple idea of creating a program through their school’s PTA (Chestnut Hill Elementary School in Dix Hills, NY) which encourages kids to bring fruits and vegetables to school for snack and lunch. That was just the initial idea. Once I started sharing my idea with friends and family, everyone began adding another great element to the program.
Finally, one day, I stood up at a PTA meeting and said, “I have an idea for a program, what do I do?” When I read my idea to the audience, everyone’s faces had smiles and they were all nodding their heads in agreement. This is when I had the feeling that something great was about to happen.
After the meeting 3 women came over to me and wanted to help put Eating the Rainbow together; Celines Brandstetter, Lynn Epstein and Nancy Mahdessian. With the unbelievable support of the PTA and school principal at the time, Mr. Chad Snyder, and the enthusiasm, inspiration, collaboration and teamwork of Nancy, Lynn and Celines, a simple idea flourished into a school wide movement.
Through assemblies, decorations, music, videos, costumes, puppets, pictures, taste tests, books, colorful graphs, and anything else we could find; we accomplished what we set out to do, and more. Yes, we made eating fruits and vegetables COOL and FUN and with long lasting effects!
Thank you for visiting EatingTheRainbow.org!
I am very excited to be finally sharing this program with you. We would love to support you in spreading the Eating The Rainbow movement to your school and community! You can contact us via this website and we will send you a copy of our step by step program guide to begin Eating The Rainbow at your school today!
Nancy, Lynn, Sharon and Celines
Sincerely - Sharon Pesner