Changing school lunch history

By Nicole Rivers and Staci Repass

May 14, 2008 10:52 pm

— MOULTRIE — A student’s idea — fueled by the work of his class — has made a big change in Willie J. Williams Middle School’s noon meal.
“Breakfast for Lunch” was an effort spearheaded by Brenda Arnold’s eighth grade reading class to make a change to the school’s lunch menu. It has resulted in a two-day experiment, the first serving on April 25 and the second May 16.
The idea, generated by Jeremy Robinson, began with him taking a survey of each of the five reading classes to tally the students that would be interested in having the opportunity to eat breakfast for lunch. Robinson pitched his proposal to Tammy Hart, the cafeteria manager, with his data of representative samples and received two dates for testing the idea.
Hart provided a copy of a School Nutrition Program song, “Lunch Lady Rap,” for the students’ inspiration.
“When I visited the classroom and talked with each group, I realized how important this was to them,” Hart said. “They shared some of their ideas with me. They were great! Robinson represented his class well when he pitched his proposal. He insisted that serving this menu once would not be enough. That was the reason for the second date, second-chance part of the students’ marketing plan.”
Students said it is their intention that breakfast be served for lunch as a standard menu item.
The lessons in Arnold’s reading class included: developing a social conscience, analyzing advertising geared to teens, arguing from a point of emotional connection, defining ideas with figurative language and graphics, in addition to increasing vocabulary. Students discovered how to “read” the hidden messages in advertising and then applied some of the techniques in their own.
Principal Doug Howell said if the experiment is successful, it might spread to other schools.
“Well, other schools look at each other for fundamental ideas,” Howell said. “They might want to try breakfast for lunch because it is a fun and unique way for students to interact with each other and this sort of project exposes them to the promotional side of business. [It will also expose them to a certain degree of job opportunities and skills.]”
Robinson and his teammates created a wide assortment of advertising posters using characters like Snoopy, Michael Jordan, Chuck Norris, all the way to Homer Simpson. More than a dozen propaganda techniques were used, such as bandwagon, prestige identification, glittering generalities, and card stacking for the “Breakfast for Lunch” campaign.
Joaly Trejo worked with Iesha Richardson and Suzie Alvorado to create a poster using the bandwagon technique of propaganda.
“We all worked together, had fun, and enjoyed the results of our efforts,” Trejo said.
Katharina Palmore echoed Trejo. “I think it was a very wonderful idea because we needed a change in our lunch and everybody got to have fun doing the work!” she said.
Some students started using the portmanteau word BRUNCH as part of their advertisement slogan. Portmanteau (according to class dictionaries) means squeezing parts of words together to make a new word that means something different. BRUNCH is made up of the first two letters of breakfast and the last four of lunch — making BRUNCH!
Throughout the project, two students were assigned the additional task of documenting it. Nicole Rivers and Staci Repass (co-authors of this report) filmed and captured the excitement of the whole shebang!
We captured our peers working together, creating colorful ideas, and solving problems to help pull the idea into one comprehensive piece and make it real. We videotaped and took many still pictures, acquiring some of the knowledge of a real film producer and photojournalist. The film and pictures will be made into a video presentation so that students can see it on Willie J. Williams’s school website.
Technology teacher Jerry Holmes was the brains behind the whole technical operation. He helped pull all the raw material together into a finished product.
“It was a very good learning opportunity to get a handle on a concentrated part of movie production,” Holmes said.
Finally, the day had arrived. Posters covered every nook and cranny of the school advertising “Breakfast for Lunch.” Students felt they had done a wonderful job using the persuasive media lessons they had learned from Arnold and were ready to enjoy what they had been working hard to market.
Again, we took the cameras into the cafeteria and even the cafeteria line to document the event. The breakfast meal consisted of scrambled eggs with bacon chunks, cheese grits, a biscuit with jelly and a ham slice, fresh fruit, milk, and a juice box.
“Breakfast for lunch is the best! Better than the normal lunch we usually eat!” said Cheltsie Howard.
After all students had eaten their brunch, several cafeteria workers informed students that they’d have breakfast for lunch again on May 16. Hart reported that approximately 1,000 meals were served at lunch on the April 25, and close to 550 breakfast meals were consumed.