Meringoff Family Foundation

I have a confession. Whenever I read that some big-name restaurant chef is going to get involved in the world of school food, I know I should be supportive of his efforts – but I secretly want to roll my eyes.

It’s not that I doubt the chef’s sincere desire to help, and it’s not that school food doesn’t need fixing. But I’ve often wondered if the skills acquired in a high-end restaurant kitchen have much to do with the problems faced by school food departments: extremely tight budgets (just a dollar per meal for food), reams of federal regulations, often seriously deficient infrastructure, and a notoriously fickle and hard-to-please clientele.

Indeed, sometimes restaurant chefs’ main contributions to schools are cooking demos that have no real relationship to what’s going in the cafeteria, which I’m sure are fun and inspiring for kids, but hardly “fix” the system. And, too, I can’t help but feel that the whole concept of “chefs in schools” is a little disrespectful to school food workers. After all, these dedicated men and women work hard every day, with no fanfare, low pay and little gratitude, and they’ll continue to do so long after the big-name chef gets his 15 minutes of fame and moves on to other ventures.

So even though I had vaguely heard good things about Wellness in the Schools (WITS), a chef-driven program working to improve the food served in New York City public schools, I didn’t know much about it; I figured it was just one more case of fancy chefs “doing good” but not really changing the status quo. But then last week I had a chance to talk to WITS co-founder and Executive Director, Nancy Easton, as well as the program’s Executive Chef, Bill Telepan, to better understand the program and its impact.

And let me tell you, people – I’ve been schooled.