 All right. Hello everyone and thank you for joining us this afternoon for the live well school food initiatives third webinar plan your campaign We will get started with that webinar Real quick here, but I just wanted to give you everyone a few housekeeping items And first of all if you have a question You can just go up to this kind of black bar at the top of your screen and click chat And then you can ask a question at any time But we are going to reserve some time towards the end to kind of go over all those questions And at that I'm going to turn you over to Rainie Hi, and thank you, Charlie and You're really excited to have all of you join us today. This is a live well at school food initiative webinar for Colorado food service directors Today's webinar is plan your campaign And this is the third in a series of five to support your efforts to bring more customers into your cafeteria By the way, this live well and its webinar or live while Colorado is providing this webinar for food service directors through a grant provided by the health Foundation and today's presentation is on how you can create a simple easy effective Marketing campaign plan for your program. My name is Rainie Wickstrom, and I'm a consultant for live well, Colorado our objectives are today to Assist you in creating your marketing campaign to provide tools for marketing your program and Really what we want to do is we want to spread great ideas across Colorado that help food service directors like you increase school milk dissipation I'd like to suggest that we grab a notebook and a pen just so that you can capture some of the ideas To be there creating your own camp plan as we move on today So just time for a quick temperature check Do any of these sound like something you might say? Well, I wish more students would choose my school lunch and breakfast program or I really need more staff participation I'm just too busy to market my program. I'm focused on feeding kids I have no idea where to begin or I just need some help creating a simple marketing plan if You selected two or more of these Then this is really the webinar for you by the time we conclude I think you're going to have some great ideas and tools in the beginnings of your own campaign campaign plan to begin or expand Whatever promotions you're currently doing now So first off. What is a campaign plan? A Campaign plan is defined as something that's aimed at accomplishing a strategic or operational objective within a given time and space For example, we know all too well in this current state that politicians routinely seek to gain voter support during an election cycle We just went through that Businesses also routinely seek new customers through advertising campaigns, especially during key moments of the year such as holiday seasons These would be two examples of planned campaign But school meal programs Also need to have campaign plans to get student staff and the community voting for their programs with their trace We recommend each school year that you create a campaign plan before school begins Which is why we're doing this webinar right now We know you're busy wrapping up the year, but we want to help set you up for success as you look forward to the new school year We're going to review a couple of these tools and steps on how to do it and actually it can be pretty easy We're also going to hear from two food service directors today Dan Sharp and Shannon Williams Dan Sharp is with district 51 in Grand Mesa County Grand Junction and Shannon is with your a school district We're going to hear from them and what they've done to be successful in getting more customers into their cafeterias We really believe that what you do is exciting and important But we know that if you don't tell your customers why your program is wonderful and why they should choose it How are they going to know? So how do you create a campaign plan? When you begin to think about your own own campaign plan begin by reflecting on why you personally Are interested in reaching more students with your program Which of these matter most to you? Is your interest in alleviating hunger? Is the lifting stigma so that more kids feel comfortable coming in and choosing school meals? Are you really wanting and needing to get more buy-in from your staff your parents and community for your healthy school meal changes? Are you also trying to get more kids enjoying and benefiting from school meals and reducing food waste? Is your interest in just increasing access to healthy foods in your community or Strengthening your bottom line or building community pride for all of the above School meals are both professional and personal for many of you Try to get connected with why you care each of you has your own personal stories about school meals And why you're invested in your programs Now that you have a few key reasons for maybe why you want to promote your program Let's start looking at a campaign plan and figure out how you can get the word out Not all audiences are the same in your community. There may be one or two specific audiences that you want to focus on Maybe it's your students. Maybe it's thereby and you need but is it your elementary students your middle or your high school students? And then when it comes to parents parents are big influencers For kids in the early grades. Do you need parents to get on board with what you're doing and invite them back to school? Meals to see what they look like in 2017 And how about the staff are they choosing to come down and enjoy this alabar? Or is it your community members or your board members when was the last time they actually enjoyed saw and tasted one of your school meals? Take a moment and just jot down which of these key audiences one or more that you'd like to reach This is really one of my favorite tools that we have at the school food initiative This is a campaign planning tool and it's approximately a two-page document almost three and These are available to you at no cost and they're easy to download and this is just one of about 45 tools that we have available to you But as you begin planning for next year, this is really a key tool What it does is it walks you through a really simple process of identifying What are the key promotional opportunities in your district that are available to help you promote your program? It also helps you identify what channels of communication are already in your district that you can utilize to reach your audience Whether it's a district website or on your menus Whether there's e-newsletters or school newsletters social media platforms or if there's opportunities to give presentations throughout the year And finally it helps you target any specific district events that happen on a regular cycle that you can plug into and On the last page of the tool There's an opportunity to just then select out of all these opportunities Which two or three or four or five you want to choose for yourself to focus on this year? And again this tool is on our website and we're going to come back at the end and show you where to find that On the second page of the tool here You can see that there's also opportunities to identify what your local media opportunities are They'll be different each of your community in each of your communities Some of you have access to television radio newspaper and social media platforms and others of you are more limited Is also media something you want to really put a focus on this year? Some food service directors make a point to put out press releases to their local media at the start of each school year showcasing new menu items highlighting cafeteria enhancements or any new partnerships they might have is There's something big or small that you would like to focus on whether it's a school garden or a student initiative or anything else exciting happening Maybe just make a quick note of anything that comes to mind In the next section of the tool there's an opportunity to select school district and events that happen throughout the year at The top of this list you'll see back to school and we really view this as a key opportunity for school meal promotions because It's really a time to connect with parents students and staff who are really excited about the upcoming new year And in the fall a number of food service directors pick Colorado proud day is another opportunity and Go ahead and just make a note if either of these might be places where you want to focus your attention this year There are many more as well and on the next slide We have a list of some of the key events that food service directors focus on Another one would be like holiday meals Thanksgiving or more in the December time frame PTO PTA meetings parent group meetings are an opportunity to connect with parents and Then there's national school lunch day and others It isn't possible to select and Participate in all of these but you can just choose two or three that work for you So that's really the first and second part of the campaign planning tool and then this is the final part this is where you reduce down to three to five or however many opportunities you want to select for the year and Decide what and who you're going to approach in utilizing which tools You've identified your target audiences. You've identified a few communication channels and then some specific School events that you want to focus on in this case this food service director Chose that she wanted to enhance her website Over the summertime and get some new content in there and update it She was also going to focus on back to school And we have some tools to help you communicate out around back to school a letter to parents there's a sample newsletter and Then she was interested in starting to utilize a social media platform And she was going to work with somebody in her District who had access to social media and connect with them and see if they would begin doing some posting and Every year she has a Thanksgiving event and it was an opportunity to highlight what was on her menu that was made freshly prepared So that's really what a campaign can look like in its most simple and or complicated form whatever time You have available you can decide what works for your schedule. I Hope you can see just how easy it is to just begin thinking about where you might target and put your efforts So this is a a snapshot of what you can find on the school food initiative website Here's just a portion of the tools that we have available to you One of our chief aims is to make it really easy for food service directors to grow and sustain their programs And we really believe that marketing and promoting it is key to that But we also know you don't have time to develop material yourself And so we've created some really simple to use templates where you can just plug in information Use what's there or modify it? For example, let's say you want to get a letter out About your new and exciting menu enhancements that you're planning to start this fall We have a back-to-school letter template that's already written and you can just customize yourself We have a press release tool to notify the media of anything that's happening a special event or our chef tasting We have talking points so that when you get in front of your staff Meetings or principal meetings you can share with them what and why you do what you do with your program And we have many other tools just to help you communicate effortlessly and easily about your program Next slide So we know when it comes to events these can be a little bit more complicated just a few tips there is Around choosing events identifying what you really want to accomplish making sure you get support Selecting a date choosing an audience and selecting a communication channel each event on its own can be its own little promotion And so because of that next slide we've created a checklist tool It's basically like a grocery list so that when you get there You know exactly what you need to do and it helps put you on autopilot So you don't have to think of all the details at the very last minute It helps you identify what's your purpose who do you need to get approval from are there any schedule conflicts with other events and It helps you just make those decisions In advance that can otherwise become difficult at the last minute Since I mentioned Colorado proud day earlier I just wanted to point out a couple resources because we have a big farm to school movement in Colorado And these are some things that food service directors in Colorado have shared with us that they've done We have sourcing local flowers as centerpieces for cafeteria tables We had Ignacio school district provide a very detailed menu over on the right side featuring all of their Colorado proud items and Then Dan which in Pueblo County? He did a great promotion with some local farmers the DeSanti brothers and have these Cutouts made of them where they hold a board and feature What their local produce items are he also was able to get some press around that which is very positive in terms of building a positive perception around your program and Lastly the University of Minnesota has a great video on how to promote your farm to school Programs and we will share that resource with you at the end as well Some of you are still trying to convince people on why they should get on board with your school meal program And this is a really quick little two-minute video provided by eco the Center for Eco Literacy and it's on making the case for Healthy school meals and this might be a good little tool for you to have in your toolbox when you're presenting your program to People in your district in your community So when it comes to planning events just a couple tips there Plan out your events for the entire year. It could be just one or two It doesn't have to be a lot Find out those places where you can piggyback on things that are already happening Make sure you promote it Also a reminder to take photos because those can be utilized later for social media posts or photos on your website Remember to invite your media They're very anxious and excited to support you and bring good news to your community So this is an opportunity to do that for them and then make sure you celebrate and share your successes The USDA has a really good little guide on some marketing ideas I wanted to point out an action for healthy kids is Both a national and state group and they've been real supportive of helping food service directors in Colorado They have some great resources and grants and they currently have one Around with some funding they can help food service directors with tasting so you might take a look at that if you're interested and Here's just another resource the Vermont farm to school has a taste testing local foods and schools resource that's a good one and Then also the lunchbox in Boulder, Colorado has a great guide on how you can really enlist Volunteers and interns to support your success. This isn't something you have to do alone And I think they're really successful food service directors No, they can't and that they do need the help of other people around them so this helps you figure out where you can maximize your supports and We do have other toolkits on our website as well There's one for parents one for students and one for food service directors And these are just available to help bring in the support of other members of your community Several years ago, we had Debbie Yerku on one of our webinars and she's from Calhoun School District in Colorado Springs and She was doing a lot of work around promoting her program at the time and She ended up increasing her breakfast participation by a hundred and seven percent She was recognized by hunger for Colorado as a breakfast innovator She did lots of other great things in her program, but I had a lot of fun working with her on her campaign plan and She shared with me some tips that we shared at the time with our food service directors in the state And I wanted to just bring those back. Oh, but before I do this was really fun Deb is one of the few people. I know that has literally an event for every month I don't suggest aspiring to this level, but she has a lot of fun. So in September She has a homecoming event and all food served is red white and blue school colors October She does a Halloween event the food gets spooky names and then there was a doctor Seuss's birthday in March and St. Patrick's Day everything turns green She had a lot of fun with her events and it paid off because she was able to boost participation So some of her suggestions that came from Deb were have fun Involve your students listen to them and really gather their ideas because they're your customers She's also big on making sure her food staff is involved and then also She's very willing to reach out and ask for help and she was the recipient of support of much support from her peers So, thank you Debbie for providing those tips and suggestions And then also Kathy del Tonto she retired from the Montrose School District area Some of her suggestions were be visible in the community tap in and listen to the opinions of your team It empowers them it increases their connectedness and the feeling that they can make a difference, too When it comes to marketing sometimes your best resources are already on your team and Then she said I didn't invent any new resources. I just use what's out there Her suggestion was start with something small and build on it. Thank you Kathy for that wisdom So now I'm gonna turn it over to Shannon Williams. She's the food service director for a small district in your ray, Colorado which is a beautiful mountain town over on the southwest corner of Colorado and She's going to share with us some of the work that she's been doing to increase participation Last year was her first year working with live well, Colorado and she developed a campaign plan and she's managed to do some great work around participation and then following Shannon, we're going to have Dan Sharp from district 51 and He'll be sharing the work that he's also doing to increase participation on the Western slope. So Shannon. Thanks for joining us today Thanks, Rainie glad to be here. We're excited to have you and I'm just going to turn it over to you now Okay, okay, um We could go to the next slide just FYI everybody I'm Shannon Williams like she said and in little little tiny you right, Colorado our school is Pre-k through 12 We have a little less than 200 students and they do all Mostly eat here, which is great. Um, oh gosh, how do I how do I make? Okay, so it's very small The the thing is very small Let me do it on full screen Yeah Okay, I need my reading glasses. I will try as good as possible so up is my is my campaign plan and We have pretty much tackled everything right that was on I think the first part of my plan We have and then I did also added some so when I started we had a horrible reputation It was all heat and serve Even the canned bright orange nacho cheese a nacho day And people did not want to eat here our participation was extremely low and we had zero faculty So I first I started with the menu and Not only creating the from scratch items were using the lunchbox, which is a great tool But on my menus that I sent out I made sure that I kind of described a little better What I was offering so people could see it's different You know, so I would put our homemade You know oven-fried chicken or I put my aunt's meatloaf with our homemade buttermilk mashed potatoes Things like that just to let them know that this is different Also, I have a great Administrative assistant at the school who makes my menus very pretty as well So that helps Then we weren't getting any high school participation because they have off-campus lunch so I did a grabbing go for the high school students and With the word out We now have I probably have about 25 high school students a day Which is actually a lot for my tiny school Do what I just laughed because you laughed Let's see and So we've also Try to get the word out through email to parents and students And faculty so sometimes If I feel like we have plenty of food for the day I will send an email out to the all staff Describing what we have for the day and that they should come join me for lunch Another tactic I used with the faculty was if we had leftovers and they were still Incredibly delicious. I would individually package them put them in the teachers lounge refrigerator and send out an email These things go over extremely well. They love it. They come see me and now I have About 10 10 to 15 about 15 staff members that come eat here every day. So that's pretty awesome Let's see If we go the next slide I think she can see so there's some of the things you did is that better Yeah, that's much better I have such an old computer guys. It's hysterical Okay, so Yeah, so we've updated our website also lately. I have been having our IT person post updates Achievements Things different things pictures of like our homemade bread or things like that I talked about the updated menu We were featured in the local paper twice actually once was through our press release The other one was just because our school board was discussing our food and the Person from the newspaper was at the school board meeting. So now it's cool. I Mentioned the grab-and-go, which is hugely popular. Oh, and they also got a new Student lounge the high schoolers. So I've created a cart over there. So if they don't want to use They're very eco-conscious here. So if they don't want to take it to go box They can take their tray and they have a system where they wheel it all back over here So that's been helpful just being accommodating I've just started doing a lot of social media posts on our Facebook page and I've joined Twitter And I'm following some food service directors to kind of see what they're doing I've never tweeted so that'll be new And oh and then the other thing is our cafeteria looks like used to look like a sanitarium Seriously, it was so horrible and depressing and our school, which is in a different building across the street got a huge Facelift got all this construction money, and it's really awesome So I was like I really want to make I want to mirror that over here And so I found a local artist that would Do it for half price? And she painted this amazing mural that kind of matches the really cool artwork and saying that's in the main school and It takes up the largest wall in our Cafeteria and looks amazing. So that's been really nice. And then we all wear chef coats when it is time for service Next slide So as a result I've increased the student participation by 35 percent This is from zero to 26 percent and sometimes it's more than that. I just wanted to be conservative Sometimes it's up to 50 percent depending on what's on the menu and due to our marketing and our Feedback and the word of mouth in my tiny town meals on wheels approached me and we now provide meals for them That's been cool next slide So my tips and advice to people is And I gotta say it was kind of easy for me because I've only been doing this job and in this industry for one year And four months. I was actually in culinary school when I got the job So I didn't have any preconceived notions. I kind of came as a blank slate So it really was just kind of like let's do this. So I just want to say don't be afraid to market The the response for me has been amazing. It's like people want to know What's going on they want to be connected to what their kids are eating And so that's been a really great feedback Also, I brag a lot You've got to show off. Hey, look at the amazing bread we made for today Our fresh homemade oven fried chicken is the fantastic come get it. We use Colorado potatoes for our mashed potatoes Things like that And it works because they they don't know until we tell them that's the bottom line and and then Also take ownership of your program. So since I didn't have any preconceived notes notions I set this up to where the principal just let me do my job and I Just am not afraid to ask for anything do something different implement stuff I I'm just always trying to do what I think is best for the children in the program and I don't really Pay much attention to everything else That's all I got That's fabulous Shannon. Thank you so much. We have questions growing for you And we'll come back to you in just a minute and we really appreciate you sharing this with us And now we have Dan Sharp from district 51 and Mesa County Grand Junction. Welcome Dan Well, welcome. Thank you very much for asking me to attend today Well, first of all, I'll just start off on Dan Sharp I've been with school district 51 for gosh ten years now and we went through the live well school scratch transition gosh, it's been four years now and It's been quite a change. We've made some really dramatic shifts in the program Which is giving me lots of stories and content to use as we go out and market ourselves with community And and that's been a really big a big thing for us. Our district is one of the it's the 12th largest in the state It's about 22,000 students are free and reduced populations about 51 100% Fortunately unlike a poor Shannon in your a I've got a team of people that can help me with a lot of the other aspects of our program and and so it's been Nice that I can help play a larger communications role and spend more time on the marketing plan as I have some key people That can help you with other things so that definitely helps so definitely the scale of your operation definitely can make an impact But don't let that dissuade you From doing the great work that like Shannon has shown She's on the in the trenches on the ground doing some great stuff all on our on our own So anyway, so my my key things are this Even in a larger scale operation. It's definitely all of us struggle daily with triage in the priorities of each day and managing our operations and then managing all the different things to do your marketing campaign in your program I try to spend time at the end of the school year as things are winding down I start kind of building and doing some research on the websites. What are some of the stories and content pieces? I'd like to talk about going into next school year. I save a folder Of that information and just kind of start putting that together But the main thing is like a look at your campaign. It's just kind of like For me it's been I like to do this annual newsletter piece And I'm not sure rainy we can get that sent out to everybody A pdf of the one that we just did last year But I have been doing that for several years and it's basically a full color brochure That I help write the content typically I pick four to six stories Um, a couple of which are usually tied to annual things that we need to do as food service directors such as like breakfast promoting I'll usually find an article on breakfast or an infographic that I find on some of the usda websites and use that In that piece, but the annual newsletter piece. I look at it as my one power tool That I can use to get out in the direct mail campaign that goes to all district households at the start of the school year It's a great way to catch the attention of parents It's got beautiful pictures short story content That hopefully engages them as a reader to to see and look at and go wow school food is not what I thought it was And then hopefully to make that decision to To not pack sack lunches and to consider your program The second thing is just identifying the strengths in your program What are the things that you do well everybody out there across the state? All of us have different skill sets all those have different things that we're really good at And I think you need to look at your program one of the things that you do well that you want to talk about That's always a great way to look at when you're building your story content But on this annual newsletter piece it to me it's like it is like killing two birds with one stone It's like killing several birds with one stone because I can use that piece throughout the year I don't just direct mail it at the start of the year to catch parents attention and start planting a seed Of here's an option for you with your kids and meal programs daily But I also use it when I go speak at public significant events Like rotary clubs lions clubs things like that I use it when I go present at the board of education meetings and refer to it I use it when I go present at pta and also at staff meetings back to school nights So it ends up becoming kind of a multi-use Document to help tell your story and it's also great too because if you're having trouble speaking in front of an audience Which is always difficult It's nice to have them head to hand them something to look at that has some brief little Snapshot stories of some of the great work that you and your team are doing in your program And as we're looking at it then you can kind of talk to some of the things that you want to share on that Next slide So Alexis for this past school year We're real proud of the fact that through the color of health foundation event foundation and through the live well culinary training that our staff Has received that we were able to receive a pretty good chunk of money a half million Over the course of three years to retrofit our kitchens to do scratch cooking, which is 36 different schools Along with these beautiful new refrigerated stainless steel salad bars. We are right now on our second year Of having these salad bars and then we kind of took a different approach by the way just a side note is I was really Concerned about the salad bar transition and if some of you directors out there are still struggling with that decision because of maybe foodborne illness concerns or norovirus being spread by kids or Food safety concerns with things staying refrigerated I would definitely recommend that route to go with the refrigerated stainless steel salad bar and look at reengineering your service lines To include that in the line versus out in the cafeteria I understand not everybody has that ability to be able to do that But that's been helpful to have that as part of the line as they're going through it But anyway, so we wanted to talk about that it was real important for us to get that out So we created our own you can see it on the right side of the slide there We created our own infographic That I had my communications person Uh here in the district helped me create. I basically said here's what I'd like to communicate You know that research shows that salad bars do the following things that you see on that slide shot And it also gave me a chance to talk about some of our local sourcing And how much do we source within the area here in the western slope but also within the state of colorado Uh also in that same brochure in that annual newsletter piece We talked about our continued work with the scratch made meal transformation But I also use it as a chance to also talk about online applications All of us are Challenge with that every year as we're asking everyone to reapply for those benefit programs unless they're forced or snap qualified And so we have a piece another section of the newsletter that that encourages households do the earning online applications And then we have I always like to do the my plate messaging So we'll usually do a story on my plate each year This year we chose an article that we found on one of the usda websites about pizza that pizza can be looked at As a healthy version for students even though some conventional thinking might be that pizza is not healthy So we kind of raised that as a story and as a talking point with with parents this past year Next slide Oh, I'm sorry. Can you go back real quick? I forgot to mention it's kind of in small print there But it's a month by the important though Each of these five to six articles that we create and we pick for our talking points throughout the year Though we turn those into PDFs and then I send those out to all the building secretaries at all 36 schools and the secretaries like that Actually, I'm sorry. It's not a PDF. It's a word doc because then they can take that Cut and paste that those images and that content right into their school newsletter software And then we remind them about that at the start of each year and then keep checking in with them on that Hopefully make sure that they're including one of those six stories each month as they go throughout the year And that's a great way to multiply The work that you've done on creating these article pieces To make sure it's being communicated throughout the year Okay, next slide And so definitely some of the other successes we talked about in our program It's how the school meal transformation plays a key role We were already, you know, the grant money that we received through the health foundation the fact that participation Is uh increasing now We also talked about our new program we started two years ago Which is the lunch lizard summer meal program, which has been a lot of fun And it's been a great pro project and program in our school district and I could talk all day about that. Um, but um, I would invite you to google lunch lizard and go check out Our web page on that. It's been a great partnership. We've increased so much publicity in the in the community With that with tv interviews with coverage even usda regional mountain plains office Provided an award for our work on that And in the last year and we've expanded it pretty significantly as you can see in the data and the infographic on the top right We two years ago in our pilot year served just 4500 meals to all the high severe pre-reduced areas of the community and then went we basically quadrupled that Last year and now this year We're actually looking to hit into the mid 20 000 meals We've expanded the number of weeks. We run the program From nine to 10 weeks. We run up monday through friday. We now have three food trucks The food trucks have been all paid for by communities businesses and individuals who love the program see that we're helping to Provide food and it's really it's a childhood hunger initiative. So people are really want to be a part of that So that's always been a good leverage point. So that's a talking that that one story is a Talking point within the five to six stories that we have in our annual newsletter And then the other one is the the farm to school partnerships I think it's always important, you know, but you can pick color on a proud day like rainy and them have suggested and promote that in september and We've picked that always as an annual talking point, you know, what's the latest? Well, now we're working with some other farmers besides apple farmers in our community And so we talked about who they are and some of those relationships one of the stories I'm really excited about to talk about next year. We've actually working with a local farmer Who's right now plant building? Greenhouses so we can start sourcing lettuce and romaine lettuce and cherry tomatoes year-round And so we're real excited about that and I'll definitely be leveraging the media To cover that and talk more about that in future future articles Okay, next slide So then I use that piece and so my efforts in june to build that piece and to build those five or six stories Then I use that piece to build into these these food open house nights all of you Maybe have the schools that perform back to school nights at the start of the school year And like rena suggested that the outset of the webinar Those are some great opportunities to catch your audience parents staff Adults and children at the early part of the year to get the to Generate excitement on all the great work that you and your team are doing And so we actually promote these food open house nights. Let us And then get your staff involved mobilize your team at those schools and actually host the dinner You provide the food you provide the labor have your staff and their nice new chef jackets and And showing that off and showing off the great quality of food and showing off your new salivars And what's better way to communicate the change in your program than to have parents and staff and And students come through On that on that one night, and of course we'll have that same newsletter handing out And talking about some of those key stories that we've picked for that year And yes, you can do it. So if those of you out there saying no, you're not you can't do that You can't do that in the school meal program. You can I check that with cd You can you can do that. So anyways, if you have a concern with that contact me separately. I'll I'll help you navigate that rule The other one is, you know, your principals and pta will love it when you contact your school principals And you tell them why you want to promote your program and how it's going to fuel learning and hopefully increase student achievement Decrease the behavior issues you might be dealing with in your classrooms and that you'll donate this night To promote your program. They're excited because they don't have to worry about organizing that they don't have to worry about Spending money out of their small fundraising accounts to to do that. So they're Most of the time in fact 99% of the time they're they're definitely Open to the idea. We mostly focus those efforts by the way at the elementary level And again helps you highlight your scratch program I already talked about some of these other bullet points already Um, yeah, we look at it as we want to convert these lunch packers into customers You know, all of us are competing with the which is great parents have that choice that they can make each day Whether they want to pack a lunch or buy lunch, but we definitely want to convert those with showing them in these food open house nights That hey, here's what your kids could be having And like dan went in peblo Uh, I took that idea from one of these salivial presentations a year or two ago And we actually did the same thing with the farmers and created the The uh life size images of them and put those in all the service lines in the schools And that's a great way to Talk about the items that you're local sourcing and it also becomes your menu board and in fact anecdotally I can tell you on one school in particular. They send me pictures every month And how they dress up their farmer based on that month. So if it's uh, you know march It's st patty's day then he's wearing a st patty's day outfit. So they have a good time with that So anyway, so definitely You want to build confidence in your program and then I usually end the presentation that each school I open house night with just a quick Mission driven closing point that this is how you we fuel learning your kids research shows That if they can have a nutrient they're able to choose their own items off of a salivar and they can have a balanced my plate Nutrient dense meal that that will show increases in higher levels of learning and that's how you sell your program to the principals and to the other people The other thing I do on my newsletters is I stay away from negatively charged topics. I don't talk about Uh, you better pay your lunch bill or we're going to hold your kids tray. I don't address those kind of issues in the newsletter pieces I think those topics are can be addressed in other forms Next slide. Oh, okay Yes, that's it Did you have anything else you wanted to add Dan? Well, I think through the questions I'll probably add some more, but I think The one thing that's kind of hitting me right now and shannon kind of touched on it And she's done that in your ray And just the short amount of time that she's there is that all the marketing you do will not matter unless you have a Great food quality and you have a great customer service All right, it doesn't matter to go out and promote and market your program If you haven't taken care of that first and shannon congrats to you for doing that in your program Oh, thanks, Dan, but you're my rock star Oh, you're too nice. Thank you So now we're just move into a few questions If you have a question you'd like to add to ours Go ahead and type that into the chat function But I do have a few follow-up questions with both of you. So first of all Dan What would you recommend in terms of customer service? How did you? Fix that so to speak Oh, okay. Yeah, great question Well, definitely we had, you know, at our start-up meetings If I think most people or most districts do your start-up meetings each fall And we usually pick a customer service topic to talk about There's all kinds of content you can google and find on the internet To talk about really why do you do what you do? You know Why are your staff and sharing that and doing some training on that with them and not just showing some video But getting them involved and let them become interactive because it's real important If they're not friendly and they're not engaging the kids that come to the service line With smiles and and being friendly that can be one reason why they're packing much and so we definitely Make a point to do training on that each year And throughout the year. I mean we're constantly out with our field supervisors Showing support with our teams working there side by side with teams and making sure that that is is occurring Just like a restaurant, you know my former career was in the hotel and Resort business and if your food quality and your customer service isn't there just like all of us We pick the restaurants we eat at That we go to because of that and so if you don't have that then none of the other marketing is going to pay off Excellent, well, thank you for that and shannon. I just wanted to go back to your slide really quick It's going to be about 10 slides back and I wanted to just point something out here go back to Speaking of food quality I just wanted you to have a little closer look at shannon salabar And her homemade bread because I thought they were extraordinary and I wanted to do a plan and go right there right away So shannon, can you just talk about food quality and how that's making a difference with your marketing and how you're utilizing food quality to market your program? Um, sure. Yeah, so, um, you know as a chef, um, I realized that people are not going to participate unless it tastes good period And we all eat with our eyes first So, um, it's also got to be beautiful So I try to create a very colorful fresh delicious salad bars and uh, I promote some of the Um, like the homemade bread we're not going to be able to do as much next year because they're cutting our budget but the homemade bread And when I hired my cook, uh, amy, um, I let her know that We have to taste everything Everything needs to be from scratch and we have to taste it because if we don't like it, they're not going to like it So that is a quality control. We do every single day That's excellent and when you said shannon earlier when you said that, um You relied on was it the secretary to help you get your marketing out? Is that right? I was curious. Who else did you do with your marketing in your district and who those people might be? Yeah, I don't I don't have a lot of help. Um, So I utilize my my friend kim is the school secretary And uh, so I utilize her because she's very good very talented Our school menus look absolutely adorable compared to last year where they were very plain and simple Um, and uh, then I also use my it person d. She's the one that Proofs my facebook posts and posts them for me and things such as that Excellent Excellent. I had one more question for you shannon too. Well, I have you is You mentioned that you're all you're comfortable bragging about your program But can you give us a couple examples of where you just do that on a daily basis? Sure, so it's On a daily basis, I mean, I definitely talk it up to the students So I'm like, hey, make sure you try this new chipotle mayonnaise. It'll go great with your chicken sandwich Um, did you know that that is fresh chicken breast that we use? um Have you uh, and I just kind of try and talk up what we offer by now they kind of know that Um, we we have homemade croutons from our homemade bread. We have All our salad dressings are homemade and then another way is my community days that I do want a month And that's where I invite certain members of the community To come and eat lunch and I pick a particular day that's going to be crazy yummy and uh, one of those community days resulted in our police department has started an account with us And they come eat here once a week That's great. That's excellent Thank you shannon and um dan I had a question for you back to let's see First of all, I love the whole idea that you pick a couple stories to focus on each year And I also know that you're really comfortable getting up and presenting and talking about your program But when I talk to food service directors, not everybody Is so how what would you recommend to someone who's maybe not as comfortable? About how to get started getting comfortable doing that Yeah, well, first of all, just you know, knowing your content in advance I think definitely before you get up having that like I said that piece where I've already spent time researching it locating it And then cutting it down maybe and wording and and reviewing it you'll gain comfort making that That that presentation when you have that and by the way, I know means of these long-winded presentations People don't want to hear a long lecture anyways. And so The other piece that I would do is just quick little bullet points Just write down on index cards Just quick little bullet points of the key thing is that you want them to walk away with what are the key nuggets of The things that you're doing whether it's your scratch made meal program And then maybe it's a new recipe or a new menu that you've developed and And you're going to be pushing and promoting it that year or Some of the other items that we've already talked about just write down kind of a key couple of bullet points and end with Why you know, why are we doing what we're doing or we're doing what we're doing because we're we're feeling successful learning and and the research shows it and And by selecting us and making this part of your decision each day with your kids choosing school launch can help impact student achievement And of course the I think that's that's to me what helps me out the most, but I got to tell you Out of all I probably do 40 to 50 tv interviews a year and another 20 to 30 other presentations between food open house nights Civic presentations I get just as nervous every time as I did the first time I did it That part never goes away even today. I mean I was nervous and I'm still a little nervous now And and so you're always going to have that but I think the fact that you know how hard you work You know how hard your team works and that's what always motivates me. I know how hard my team works Take care of and provide Food that we do every day in our schools and I want people to know about that. I want to share that That's my why I want them to know that the hard work that we do To help ensure your kids successful And and that's what that's what helps to to drive me to to have the nerve to get up and talk about that Excellent. Thank you dan and just one more question for you about your food open house Nice, it just sounds like a fabulous idea. It sounds like a lot of work, but it does sound like a great way to Really persuade parents that school meals might not look like they did when they were kids That I mean that just it seems like a great idea. How hard is it to do this? It's not. Yeah, I put on the calendar. I I'll set up the details with my team We'll pick a menu and I'll put it on our outlet calendar and I'll send that to that manager and that team We've already trained on and communicated with them in advance. Here's why we're doing what we're doing It's a great chance for you to market promote this program at your school And to show off the great hard work that you and your team are doing I'll come by and I'll talk to the parents in the cafeteria once everybody's assembled for just a couple of minutes I'll help do that part for you. I introduced the manager and the team at that school And everybody usually gives them a round of applause and and I always fit in the little local sourcing topic into that that little quick three four for five minute bite and it's amazing every time we do it We get people coming up afterwards that are like I had no idea I had no idea that school food had changed this much I had no idea that you had these new Wonderful salad bars and that you guys were doing quinoa salads and offering hard boiled eggs and And other proteins now in your salad bar. I had no idea that the scratch foods you're making is this good And so that's a reward. That's great for my team and for myself to hear that and yeah, that's what that's how you build participation To me, there's no other better way. You can do all the other great marketing tools that are here and they help But boy getting them to come into your restaurant and to see the work that you're doing and and To me is is is the best way to promote your marketing program And by the way, I have to mention when Shannon was talking about updating your Sanit our sanitarium looking kitchens and cafeterias That's critical. I think that smarter lunch room movement tool is very helpful And I think definitely doing those things In your cafeteria to give it more of a look of a restaurant and treating it that way Is a great way to look at how to manage your program and side note Definitely the live well pages that rainy you and your team provide with all that content has been helpful for me And generating some story ideas and then also lunch lessons that website that shannon referred to We've used that one quite a bit in recipe development the osda approved recipes and those are also great ways to To build your menu Super on that terrific note. Dan. Thank you We'll wrap up and move on to just with a few more notes about the tools and where to find them and Thank you both so much for all this excellent content and dan We will be able to share out that pdf if you want to share it with us as well And sure, okay Super and now i'm just going to move on to just review a couple more tools that are available for you On the website. We talked about the invitations shannon has used our invitations for her community events We have some talking points you can use to present your program Again, we mentioned some of these other things earlier I want to talk to you on this next slide about a new tool that we have available to you Which is our website tool Many of you will spend some time this summer looking at your website and trying to figure out how to enhance it We put together a two page tool and reference some of our terrific examples here in colorado one of which is Ray Adele Over an eagle bale has a great website and then paula boozer and canyon city has another website And we put together some tips and ideas for you on what to consider when you're building and expanding your website and making it All beautiful and attractive So where do you find the tools there at the live well colorado website? And to get there there's just a tiny bit of navigation You'll need to tab over to the healthy schools link. I think on the next slide. We can actually show you what it looks like So there's a healthy schools tab on the left And you click on the school food initiative, which is one of our particular areas of focus And then down to online resources, which is where the little girl is in the swimming pool on the right We do ask for your name and your email address just so we can keep track of who visits our tools and utilizes them But we don't share that information with anyone else All the tools are available to you for free They're downloaded all and they come in both pdf and word versions and you can customize them to fit your own needs We're going to be sharing with you today the resources that we mentioned throughout the webinar as well as dan's pdf that he talked about And we really just want to thank you for joining us today for to all the food service directors pre and pass to Ben on here and share their great ideas with us And all of you who are working diligently to support the health and well-being of colorado's youth And to promote healthy school and fresh school meals A special thank you to the colorado health foundation for making this webinar possible And a big thank you to shannon and dan for taking time out of your very busy schedules at the end of the year To share your knowledge and wisdom and experience with others across colorado So i'm going to turn it back to charlie now All right, and we are going to share The recording of this webinar with everyone as well as all of those different Resources that rene was just referencing so unless anyone has any questions. We are Set for the day And i'm not seeing any questions. So thanks everyone for joining us