What’s New?
Nutrition Updates for May 2024
Quarter 4 Menu runs through June 6th. Get your favorites while you can!
Our “Everyone’s Welcome” soup on Monday is proving quite popular. It’s vegan, gluten free, and highlights a weekly rotating vegetable. So far we have featured veggies like celeriac, kohlrabi, and butternut squash. What’s next? Come back each week and find out!
We asked the kitchen staff, what’s your favorite Ball Park and Picnic Food?
Chef Dan:
Ball Park: Hot dog with mustard, relish and raw onions with a Killebrew root beer
Picnic: German potato salad. Watermelon too!
Chef Tess:
Ball Park: Nachos and cheese
Picnic: A good cheese plate with olives and crackers
Chef Sam:
Ball Park: Bratwurst with mustard, onions and kraut
Picnic: Egg salad sandwich
Chef Mel:
Ball Park: Loaded nachos with sour cream, pickled peppers, salsa and cheese sauce
Picnic: Cold macaroni salad with grapes, ham, cheddar cheese and mayo
Chef Julie:
Ball Park: Vegan sriracha brat with all the fixings
Picnic: Potato salad
See you in the lunch line,
Chef Dan, Tess, Mel, Sam and Julie
We look forward to serving you,
Your friends in the Great River kitchen, Dan, Tess, Julie and Mel
School Nutrition
We believe that food is a connector.
It reminds us of the people and places that nourish us, and the land from which our food comes.
We have completely revamped our school nutrition program. In 2021, we moved away from our food production kitchen model to an education based program that also serves food. The new program includes a creative expression culinary class, focusing on sustainability and climate change in a commercial kitchen, and a creative expression cafe microeconomics class which allows the students to experience running a business. This program is available to Lower Adolescent students — stay tuned for more details! We are excited to have a new world of what the nutrition program looks like at GRS!
We will want feedback as the year progresses, and keep in mind that we are always evolving this model! You can email lunch@greatriverschool.org with any feedback you may have.
Program Mission
Understanding the important role that food plays in sustaining our bodies, our friendships, our families, and our relationship with living beings ties to our school’s core values to honor all living beings and work toward global peace through education. A strong relationship with our food empowers all of us to be more healthy, caring and engaged participants in our local community.
Our program aims to be healthy and supportive of a sustainable food system. For our program, we define ‘sustainable’ as:
Supporting local agriculture
Preparing all foods from scratch
Focusing on plant-based whole-food- meals
Choosing chemical & pesticide free ingredients
Questions can be directed to lunch@greatriverschool.org.
What Makes GRS Meals Different
At Great River School, we do our best to ensure that our students are being fed a healthy, balanced diet using sustainable ingredients while also tasting great. We recognize that many students have dietary restrictions so we avoid cooking with common allergens like peanuts and dairy and instead use alternatives like sunflower seeds or coconut/almond milk respectively. In addition to this, most of our food is vegetarian or vegan and we always provide a gluten free option.
Since Great River School does not take part in the National School Lunch Program, we rely heavily on funding from outside sources and grants. It is because of this that our students do not all receive free meals. However, families are strongly encouraged to fill out the application to apply for Educational Benefits; this includes free or reduced-price meals. The application is linked in the quick links section below.
Hot lunch is offered Monday - Friday on a rotating basis, while there are 2 cold lunch options offered every day during your students lunch period. A cold breakfast is also offered before the first school period starts Monday - Friday. The menus change by quarter and a copy of the most recent menu can be found in the quick links section below.
Meal pricing is as follows:
Cold breakfast - $2.50
Cold lunch - $2.50* or $5
Hot lunch - $3.50
*Cold lunch options are either a choice of a rotating sandwich or wrap/salad/grain bowl, half sandwiches/wraps are offered for a lower price of $2.50.
Quick Links
UPDATED: Quarter 3 Lunch Menu 2023-24
School Payment Portal Direct Link
School Payment Portal How-To Guide- how to make a lunch account using the school payment portal