When Ann Cooper started as Boulder Valley’s food service director about 12 years ago, her plans included moving from individual school kitchens preparing lunches to a single, central production kitchen.
The “renegade lunch lady” realized that goal as the district’s new central kitchen opened in August, while also meeting her main objective to replace highly processed lunches with healthy, scratch-cooked meals.
Other accomplishments include adding salad bars to school cafeterias, working with area farmers to serve more local food and reducing food waste.
Cooper announced this week she’s retiring at the end of the month.
“We have a really, really strong team,” she said. “I’m leaving the School Food Project in really great hands. They’re going to do fantastic work. I can’t wait to see what they’re going to come up with.”
She added she’s ready for a break after working since she was 17, including more than 20 years working to improve school food. Along with her work in Boulder Valley, she’s been an advocate nationally for healthy lunches. And as a 67-year-old who is immunocompromised, she’s been limited in her ability to work onsite during the pandemic.
“I can’t do some of the things I might have liked to do,” she said.
Boulder Valley first hired Cooper’s consulting business to evaluate its food services program. After the company issued a scathing review — Cooper, then the food services director in the Berkeley Unified School District, wasn’t involved directly in evaluating Boulder Valley — Boulder Valley hired Cooper to make the changes that were recommended.
Former school board president Helayne Jones, who included overhauling the district’s lunch program in her campaign when she ran for the board, suggested Cooper’s consulting company after hearing about her work in Berkeley. She said saw a disconnect between Boulder’s values and the highly processed food served in schools.
“There was such a vibrant farm-to-table community and natural foods sector in Boulder,” Jones said. “There was a lot of support for this work here.”
She described the changes as “a wonderful thing we did for the children in Boulder Valley.”
“Ann always had the kids in her heart,” she said. “She always was willing to push for things that were right for kids.”
For her part, Cooper said, she decided to leave Berkeley both because she considered Colorado a “second home” and for the professional opportunity.
“I wanted to see if we could really make these changes we tried in Berkeley work in a bigger system, and we did,” she said.
As she nixed Boulder Valley’s money-making a la carte and snack options, school food — once a money maker — began losing money. Though there was pushback from families and some district staff members, the school district continued to support Cooper’s efforts by subsidizing the lunch program.
To help fund the initial changes, community donors gave thousands of dollars — and have continued to support the program.
“Businesses and families have just been amazingly supportive,” Cooper said. “They helped make this happen.”
To convince more students to eat the new, healthier options in the hot lunch line, Cooper raised money to create an extensive outreach program that included food tastings, chef demonstrations and student “Iron Chef” style competitions. To appeal to high school students, she even added a food truck.
When school buildings closed in March amid the pandemic, Cooper and her team began providing bags of pantry staples, produce and prepared items for families to pick up. She said the food distribution program counting its millionth meal this week is her proudest accomplishment.
“Ann’s outstanding leadership has been especially apparent during the pandemic,” Boulder Valley Superintendent Rob Anderson said at a recent school board meeting.
He also praised Cooper for helping launch a national conversation about school lunches.
“She has had the opportunity to show the world that her aspirations of serving students healthy, fresh and delicious scratch-cooked meals is not only possible, but necessary for our children,” he said.
Cooper said she plans to continue overseeing the nonprofit Chef Ann Foundation that she founded in 2009. The foundation helps schools and districts across the country create healthy school meal programs through grants and resources. Those resources include online cooking courses and scratch cooking recipes.
The foundation’s chief operating officer, Leslie Stafford, was the chief financial officer in Boulder Valley when Cooper was hired.
“I don’t think there’s anybody who works harder than Ann does,” Stafford said.
While Cooper’s changes seemed somewhat radical at the time, she said, districts across the country now are following a similar path to provide healthier, less processed meals.
“Ann’s work was really important to the district and a great legacy,” Stafford said.
The Link LonkDecember 12, 2020 at 08:51AM
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BVSD’s Ann Cooper reflects on school lunch reform work before retirement - Boulder Daily Camera
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