Two Revere schools launch pilot dinner program

REVERE – The mouth-watering scent of cheese ravioli traveled through the hallways of the Paul Revere School on a recent afternoon.?I can?t wait to eat that,” 6-year-old John Serrano said as he looked at his dinner plate.Revere Public School employees started serving students in after-school programs dinner two weeks ago.The Paul Revere School and Garfield Elementary School are the first to try out this new dinner program. The dinner program is being paid for through a grant.?We thought we would be a perfect candidate so why not go for it,” Megan Fidler-Carey, administrator for district partnerships after school programs, said during a recent interview.It also provides an opportunity for students to receive a hot meal who might not get one at home.?When I was a kid, a teacher was just a teacher,” Superintendent Dr. Paul Dakin said. “In a lot of ways, we are now raising these kids.”Dakin said that about 75 percent of the students in Revere receive free lunch or reduced lunch, which is about 4,275 students.Paul Revere and Garfield were chosen to be the pilot schools for the dinner program because they have the largest percentage of students who receive reduce or free lunch, according to Fidler Carey.?This is just a natural extension of what schools are doing already,” Dakin said. “It?s a real support to the parents. It?s a very good thing.”The dinner program feeds up to 25 students at the Paul Revere School and up to 110 at the Garfield School, she said.The food is provided by a catering company out of Malden, Fidler-Carey said.?Most of the kids are in school to 5 or 6 because of the after-school programs, so it makes sense to feed them,” Fidler-Carey said.One great aspect of the new program is that it allows an opportunity to educate children on eating healthy, she said.?We definitely teach the kids about portion control,” Site Coordinator Joann Worcester said.The students dined on cheese ravioli, pineapple and broccoli during a recent late afternoon.?I ate it so fast,” Serrano proclaimed.Parents have a choice about whether they want their kids to get the dinner.?Some parents do want their child to eat dinner at home. However, the majority of the students do eat dinner here,” Worcester said.The dinner program has also introduced children to different kinds of food that they might otherwise not be exposed to.?I was worried about having kid-friendly food. I talk to the chief and he said he had an obligation to offer culturally diverse options,” Fidler-Carey said. “It totally makes sense seeing as we such a diverse population.”Officials hope to expand the dinner program to other schools next year.?I would definitely like to see it in other schools by next September,” Dakin said.Sara Brown can be reached at [email protected].