CRESTVIEW — Healthy eating paid off in more ways than slimmer waistlines for Crestview High School students.
Leadership program students who received a $500 award in a healthy eating competition will use the money to purchase new microwave ovens for the cafeteria. The appliances will benefit classmates who bring their lunches from home.
The school was the top statewide winner in Sodexo’s Healthy High School Challenge, in which the food service contractor partnered with vendors to encourage students to eat healthy foods.
“The more healthy snacks they ate, the more points they got,” Sodexo district marketing coordinator Anthony Mendoza said.
“And the more they ate, the more we got,” Sodexo’s Okaloosa School District area supervisor Jo Marcotte said.
Crestview High competed against 330 schools and 385,000 students nationwide before being named the top Florida winner and recipient of a $500 cash prize, Sodexo resident district manager Tony Buscemi said.
CHS cafeteria manager Lynn Rogers said contest rules required that the money go to a student organization, and she and her staff didn’t hesitate to present it to the Leadership program.
“The Leadership kids help us throughout the year,” Rogers said. “They do quite a bit of everything,” including orienting new students to cafeteria procedures and signing up for dining PINs.
This is the first year an Okaloosa County school has won the Healthy High School Challenge, Buscemi said.
Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Crestview High School No. 1 in statewide healthy eating competition