“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well,” wrote Virginia Woolf. Newark’s public charter school network, Brick Gateway Academy, agrees: According to eighth-grade teacher Tina Leake, the school’s new project—creating meals students look forward to— is “beautiful to see,” with each day’s breakfast and lunch a feast of “healthy delicious choices…Teachers are thrilled to see how much the students love the food and how much they’re actually eating.”

There is a difference between the typical school lunch and what students get at Brick Gateway Academy. Why? Because, explained Chief Operating Officer Chaleeta Hines, educators there understand food is more than a meal; it is a way to nourish students academically, emotionally, and nutritionally. In a recent interview she described the school’s evolution from pre-packaged, pre-delivered meals to a menu that speaks to ethnic pride, community, and social-emotional learning.  

Example: One day last week, students were served freshly-made blueberry bread, cereal, fruit, and milk for breakfast (which is “grab and go”). Lunch was Cajun chicken pasta, roasted baby carrots, brussels sprouts, and watermelon. Plus every day there is a well-stocked salad bar which, in a surprise to staff members, students pile up on their plates. (All students are eligible for free meals.)

Said Hines, “just imagine going to school everyday and you’re confident you’ll be eating food that shows how much we value and respect our students. It’s been a game-changer.”

This innovation in food delivery was motivated by the most important stakeholders: students. Last year when Brick Gateway came about through a merger of two public charters, People’s Prep and Achieve, one of the schools didn’t even have a kitchen, which led to lackluster dining. “That’s not where we wanted to live,” explained Hines, so they hired a vendor, Red Rabbit, which specializes in diverse meals, reflecting the diversity of enrollment. (Almost all students are Black or Latino and come from low-income households.) “What we eat is an essential part of our cultural identity and sense of self,” the company says. Or, as Hines explains, “it’s not just eating, it’s about community.”

This attention to community plays out in how Brick Gateway serves its meals, not in a cafeteria line but “family style,” with options set out on the table and students serving themselves. “Kids get what they need,” she says, “and there is no feeling of scarcity.” Plus, “it’s appealing, with nice tablecloths, new foods to try, bowls of fruit.”  The on-site chef, fondly called Chef Q, who grew up in Newark, speaks with the students, engages with them, “urges them to tell her how they rate the food on a scale of 1-10.” 

What do students think?

Hines relates a story from earlier this year when a student forgot her lunch and a parent called, saying, “I’m going to come in because she won’t eat school lunches.” Hines urged patience: After lunch, the student told her mother, “Oh my god, I want to sneak home this meal! Mom, you have to try this!”

On another occasion a student was having a bad day. Chef Q asked him, “you need a good lunch, right?” That did the trick.

An eighth-grader commented, “the food is so much better than last year!” and another said, “the lunch program is very good because they even have vegan options, a salad bar, healthy fruit, and no sugar.

There has been an additional and unexpected benefit: Teachers like the meals served at school so much better than calling Uber Eats that they are paying a small fee to get the same food, a possible element of teacher retention.

Hines asks, “would you ever consider missing a day of school if you’d be served meals like this?” Thus, the close community at Brick Gateway Academy nourishes body and soul.