The food service professionals at New Castle Community School Corporation (Indiana) are serving up nutritious school meals with creativity and personality. Whether dressing up in crazy costumes or decorating the cafeteria, school nutrition professionals are providing an exciting environment to welcome students.

Hawaiian cocktail style cups served as the fruit cups for the day.

Carrots served on a bed of sand, with small sand castles in the background add to the beach theme.

Croissants turned into small crabs for the Blizzard Beach Party.

On January 26, students celebrated the Blizzard Beach Party to have some summer sun during the coldest month of the year! New Castle Director of Food Service Dee Orick said the winter bash luau idea started as a way to help get students through the dog days of winter. Schools menu items are often decorated to go along with the theme of the day. For the Blizzard Beach Party, cheese and turkey croissant sandwiches are turned into crabs and fruit cups get an island update, complete with tiny cocktail umbrellas. There are four separate lines of meals in the cafeteria, which never run the same options.

“Years ago, the high school had four lines with all the same items,” said Orick. “We’ve changed that to include much more fun and exciting menu items, like build-your-own sandwich, a Mexican line, home-style cooking lines and pizzas made-from-scratch. The high school kind of serves as a guinea pig to see what will be successful elsewhere in the district. They help give us new ideas for lines and help expose the younger children in the district to more exciting menu items, in some cases food they’ve never tried outside of school.”

The nutrition department is no stranger to events, according to Orick, who said they have a calendar filled with creative events, holidays and sports-related celebrations throughout the year, including the Apple Crunch and a big Halloween bash.

Orick, also vice president of the Indiana School Nutrition Association, said the food service staff go above and beyond when it comes to decorating the cafeterias and dressing up on special days.

“My staff is very great at getting creative,” she said. “They often take trips after Halloween to the costume store and stock up on amazing outfits that they’ll use throughout the year. They really get into it and it makes the students excited about themed days as well.”

For Thanksgiving, her staff prepares a traditional holiday dinner with all the fixings, just in case one of their students won’t have that at home. Last year, members of the kitchen staff dressed as Native Americans and Pilgrims, again bringing smiles to the faces of the children they feed.

For School Lunch Hero Day, it’s not uncommon to see a food service employee swoop by in their cape, said Orick. They are a staff that truly likes to have fun, making healthy meals for the students of New Castle.