STEW sees results at WELS-North

STEW sees results at WELS-North
Posted on 09/22/2022

STEW (Students Teamed for Educational Wellness), a WELS-North student group, advocated for improved lunches last year. The students were getting lunch from the White Bear Lake School District every day, but because there were no warmers at WELS-North, the lunches were delivered cold.

“Changes will be beneficial to our entire community as it will help our students do better in the working world. We go out to worksites, and we should not be expected to do well when we are tired from not getting adequate nutrition. We want to feel like we are in the real world, and in the real world, we will have options as to what we eat for lunch.”

STEW members sent a 4-page letter pleading for better lunch options, especially a hot option, invited 916 Cabinet members to try the cold lunch, and gave a presentation on why students need hot lunch options. After that, everyone agreed that the lunch options weren’t ideal and change needed to happen.

“Just try and make them more like high school lunches, more like lunches at a normal school. How should we change things? Have an in-house lunch or try and have it be that we get hot lunch at least once a week.”

WELS-N STEW Image

The result of STEW’s efforts was an upgraded kitchen. Before the start of the 2022-23 school year, WELS-North installed an industrial warmer, an industrial fridge, and, coming soon, a new dishwasher. Now the students have hot lunch options each day. When asked about the change, the replies from the students were “exciting,” “awesome,” and “much better.”

WELS-N Kitchen Image  WELS-N Lunch Image  WELS-N Lunch Image