Woonsocket Schools
 At Your Service
Special Info
May 2012 Updates
Kid’s Way Café Leads the Way
Sodexo’s Woonsocket team has introduced a new and improved Kid’s Way Café at the Kevin K. Coleman Elementary School. It is part of a true reinvigoration of space and content: Fresh paint throughout the cafeteria, an updated kid-friendly serving line with a self-serve garden bar offering a wide variety of daily choices has added new function and appeal to this vibrant Team Fairmont school. The Coleman School facelift marked the end of an 18-month Sodexo project to paint, update, and enhance Woonsocket elementary schools’ Kid’s Way Cafés. “Atmosphere,” as they say, plays an important role in enhancing the dining experience. And pleasant new surroundings at the Coleman School have had a marked, positive impact on all that we do for our “clients for life.”
Coleman Before
Coleman After
You Can Have It Your Way!
Since March Woonsocket High School students have been lining up for the innovative new Hot Deli line offered each day at lunch. Students enjoying lunch at this sub sandwich station first choose between pulled pork, chicken, or meatballs. They then select their favorite sauce from a large variety of hot and cold options. Finally they can top their creations with a wide variety of fresh vegetable offerings. The possibilities are endless! And so is the enjoyment of healthy, delicious choices.
Breakfast in the Classroom Comes to Woonsocket
Students at Citizen’s Memorial Elementary School now can start their school days by enjoying wholesome breakfasts in their classrooms. This pilot program has received a great deal of positive feedback from parents, teachers, administrators, and most importantly, from students. The classroom has taken on a whole new energy!
Sodexo Scholarship
Sodexo Woonsocket is pleased to award an academic scholarship to a worthy Woonsocket Student. Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center Culinary Arts or Baking & Pastry Arts students who are pursuing post-secondary education in the field of Culinary Arts are invited to apply.
RI Local
Sodexo’s commitments to purchase, serve, and otherwise promote the value of locally grown and produced menu items is stronger than ever.
- In September the Woonsocket School District participated in Sodexo RI – All Local Day. Students at all schools enjoyed a wide variety of locally grown and produced food and milk offerings, including a multitude of fruit and vegetable choices, RI pasta, sauce, eggs, hot dogs, and salads. As a special tribute to a home town legend, Woonsocket’s own Dynamite Sandwiches were made with RI grown peppers and onions.
- The students at Woonsocket Middle School Hamlet and Woonsocket Middle School Villa Nova enjoy fresh, oven roasted potatoes every day at lunch. During the 2011 – 2012 school year, WMS students will enjoy more than 24,600 lbs. of RI grown potatoes. The potatoes for this very popular menu offering come from the Quonset View Farm of Portsmouth, RI. Farmers Dave and John Cotta are thrilled to know that the WMS students are enjoying their bounty.
- Kid-friendly, mouth-watering I.C.M. Muffins have been added to the breakfast menu. These delicious, healthy, whole grain muffins are made in neighboring Cumberland using local produce when available during the harvest season.
Along with providing our children with the finest, most nutritious food available anywhere, Sodexo promises to support the local economies of its home communities.
Calling All Future Chefs!
Sodexo in Woonsocket held its 2nd Annual Future Chef Cook-off Competition in February. This year’s cook-off was open to all Woonsocket Middle School students. Students submitted recipes for their Favorite Healthy Breakfast Dish, and 18 finalists were invited to compete at the cook-off. The Future Chef finalists prepared their recipes with the help of a trained Sodexo staff member for a panel of judges and for the public. The goal of this fun and exciting event is to encourage and educate students in healthy eating habits.
The Sodexo Difference
GLOBAL RESOURCES ... STATEWIDE EFFICIENCY ... LOCAL CONTROL
We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. – Franklin Delano Roosevelt
When the partnership between the Woonsocket Education Department and Sodexo began in 1993, no one could have predicted with any degree of certainty the social, economic, and cultural changes that would impact our lives so powerfully over the next seventeen years. All we could know with confidence then was that significant, systemic change would take place, and that, working together, we would spare no effort or expense to guide our youth and indeed our entire community safely through whatever lay in store.
Today we can look with satisfaction to all we have accomplished as partners. But success, no matter how impressive, must never lull us into complacency. So even as we acknowledge the achievements of the past, we focus on the future with renewed commitment to the well-being of our most precious commodity: the children of Woonsocket.
By all reasonable measure, our commitment to deliver Global Resources, Statewide Efficiency, and Local Control has returned impressive results. Accordingly, it is safe to say that Woonsocket and Sodexo have “set the bar” at an extraordinary height. And now we are poised to raise it even higher.
This website will help us to meet that lofty goal. The Woonsocket Page will be your one-stop source for the important news and information that impact our children’s lives each and every day – in school, at home, and wherever they may find themselves in our great, wide world.
The Reason Why We Work So Well Together
In the most literal and meaningful sense, Sodexo did not come into this great city. Sodexo came out of Woonsocket.
This inescapable truth is revealed in numbers:
- 59 out of 70 Sodexo employees in Woonsocket live in our city.
- 11 members of our staff reside in the Blackstone Valley.
- 23 were born and raised in Woonsocket.
- 32 own homes in Woonsocket.
- 27 rent homes in Woonsocket.
But there are two additional numbers that truly humble all of us at Sodexo:
- 22 Sodexo employees have a total of 40 children enrolled in Woonsocket public schools.
When Sodexo serves Woonsocket, we serve our own families and neighbors.
WOONSOCKET: RHODE ISLAND’S WORKING CAPITAL
One of Woonsocket’s most celebrated native sons was the late, legendary jazz pianist Dave McKenna. His unique style, we think, profoundly reflected the essence of the city of his birth.
Dave’s left hand was a factory of rhythm, generating an irresistible forward momentum. Yet simultaneously from his right hand there emanated sheer melodic beauty as he spun musical manifestations of passion, gentility, humor, and hope. His were human stories, rooted in hard labor yet reaching for the stars.
It is nothing short of poetically just that Woonsocket, Rhode Island is home to a Museum of Work and Culture. The narrative of America’s working class is Woonsocket’s living narrative. And for seventeen years Sodexo has demonstrated not only a commitment to working class values and practices, but also the ability to realize that commitment time and time again.
The great playwright Henrik Ibsen wrote, “A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.”
Since 1993 you have honored Sodexo by allowing us to place our corporate hand next to yours on Woonsocket’s helm. We are pleased to continue to steer a steady, profitable, productive, enriching course for our community.
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When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is not “I’ll start tomorrow.” Tomorrow is a disease. – V. L. Allineare
Let’s get the ball rolling. As some of you may know, in 2009 Island has implemented new nutrition requirements (RINR) for all public schools. Sodexo applauds these standards, and we remain committed to meeting and even exceeding them.
Here’s What’s Changed
Grains – All grains served (rice, breads, pasta, cereal, pizza etc.) are now whole grain or wheat products.
Fruits/Vegetables – Students are offered three servings of fruits and vegetables at lunch: one serving will be dark green or orange, and another will be a fresh or raw vegetable or fruit
Cooked Legumes – One or more servings of cooked legumes (dried beans, peas or lentils) are offered each week.
Sodium – Lower the sodium intake are accomplished by serving low sodium products.
Milk/Juice – The following choices are available each day:
- 1% or skim, non-flavored milk.
- Flavored milk with 1% or less fat and no more than 4 grams of total sugar per ounce.
- 100 % juice
The sales of extra entrées are no longer available at elementary schools.
WINTER/HOLIDAY NOTES – 2010 – 2011
We are in the midst of the season for which New England is celebrated around the world – the season for harvesting and for giving.
And in this lovely spirit, Sodexo is proud to break the following news:
ITEM – The Woonsocket Backpackers Program is expanding! The Sodexo Foundation, in partnership with the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, will expand its award-winning Backpackers Program so that Woonsocket’s elementary schools will be served along with middle schools and high schools.
Each week, Special Needs students at Woonsocket Middle School and High School fill backpacks for their peers in need. In doing so, they develop important life skills. And they lead by example, setting standards for caring that all of us will be challenged to meet in our daily lives.
The search for the heroes among us leads directly to these extraordinary young men and women.
ITEM – Woonsocket Education has eight Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Grants from the U. S. Department of Agriculture. Thanks to the efforts of Ellen Shalvey, our Sodexo General Manager who submitted the Applications, and the elementary school administrators and teachers who deliver its promise, a total of $144,000 for the 2010-2011 school year will be spent to bring fresh fruit and vegetables – and nutrition education – to our children two days per week. Ellen conducts the research and writes the material upon which principals base their mini-nutrition lessons delivered on days when the food is served.
ITEM – Sodexo is pleased once again to sponsor a Thanksgiving Gift Basket program. Each Woonsocket school will have a basket to deliver to a needy recipient.
ITEM – Every elementary and secondary school in Woonsocket now boasts a Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Bar with increased healthy choices at lunchtime.
ITEM – Ours is designed to be an interactive website. Its growth and effectiveness will depend in large measure upon your willingness to be a part of all that happens here. Please share your ideas and express your needs to us. They will be reflected in these pages.
This website will be updated regularly, and all of us hope that you’ll be a frequent visitor to www.sodexori.com.
There is so much news to report. There are so many new standards to be set, met, and exceeded.
And it’s all up to us.
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