Garden Hills Elementary, Elementary Schools

UPDATE: Herb Mesa discusses his upcoming appearance here, serves it up here, and wraps up the afternoon here.

Herb Mesa hasn’t had any trouble being in front of an audience before. But this time, it wasn’t to become the Next Food Network Star. This time, it was an opportunity for the Atlanta personal chef to promote healthy eating habits in Atlanta Public Schools. Mesa was one of 50 “celebrity chefs” to participate in the APS part of National School Lunch Week by visiting schools, serving up lunch to hungry students, and arming them with healthy eating information.

For Mesa it was a tripleheader of a week; while he served lunch on Friday at North Atlanta High School, he’d paid earlier visits to schools where he has his daughters are enrolled: Garden Hills Elementary and Sutton Middle. “I have children of mine own; I l remember what school lunches were like,” Mesa said before serving it up at North Atlanta. “I felt like it would be a cool opportunity to get involved … to maybe make a change with school lunches.”

No shrinking violet, Mesa eagerly served up sandwiches with his co-worker for the day, Tanji, and they both noted how students – especially in high school – are becoming better informed about nutrition and are making better decisions in their diet.

It’s all about of APS health and wellness efforts spearheaded by Dr. Marilyn Hughes, APS’ director of nutrition administration. (Read the transcipt of her interview with CNN here.) She noted that this is the first year APS’ participation in National School Lunch Week has been so comprehensive. “The most important reason for making the community and parents aware of the nutritional meals served at lunchtime is because we’re providing the main meal for students during the day,” she said. “The meals in lunchtime has the highest amount of calories they get, and we want to make sure at APS they received the highest nutritional value of the meal they’ll consume because we will provide locally grown fruits and vegetables on a daily basis as well as a nutritious meal to meet their needs for the day.”