This week we had our forum and it went really well. We presented to people with celiac disease and people without the disease. Everyone loved the pastries. We all presented equally and parents and students were extremely excited to have delicious pastries in the cafeteria. We also finished our poster this week and it looks great. We are very happy with what we have accomplished. We all can’t wait to eat the pastries next school year!
If Windward can sort out the legal matters, Breakaway Bakery will provide 20 pastries every day. This solution is sustainable and effective. The pastries Breakaway Bakery will provide are healthy and delicious! The pastries are free of Gluten, wheat, dairy, peanuts, tree nuts, soy, and GMOs. Everyone in the group is very excited to bring such good pastries to the Pavilion, and provide options for students with food allergies by next year. We took a survey for the entire school and we found some really good results. Not many people have an allergy to gluten but more than half of the people we surveyed said they would eat the pastries even if they are not gluten free. Our plan for the bakery will probably not be in action until next school year but as we said before, these pastries will last in the pavilion for a long time. As we get ready for the forum, we are trying to possibly get a few sample pastries for our table so visitors can try them out. We are getting close to the end and it feels good to have made a difference in our community.
Last Monday, Jack and Jake went to Kenter Canyon School. We learned that Kenter does very well to organize their data and the food in the cafeteria. Since we couldn’t help them with organizing we decided to go to plan B. After a few phone calls and talking with the head chef at Windward, we came to the conclusion that our cafeteria needs gluten free pastries. We found two bakeries near us and currently we are trying to see if they can provide Windward with around twenty pastries everyday. If we can find a bakery that can do this, our work is done and Windward can sort out all of the paperwork.
This week we continued contacting schools in the area. We have connected with Kenter Canyon and Canyon School. We expressed to the schools that awareness needs to be raised and a change in the lunch program. This Monday, We are planning on going to the two LAUSD schools. We are going to talk to them about cross-contamination and sending out forms to the parents of the students. We want to see how many people have the disease or allergy. Our plan for the future is to help the schools be more efficient and aware with the food in the cafeteria regarding gluten.
This week, we focused on getting in contact with LAUSD. We asked them many questions, specifically relating to food allergies and gluten. To identify this issue, we looked at the current menu that LAUSD serves has little to none gluten free options. The only consistent gluten free option they have, is fruit. As we all know, fruit is not a complete lunch especially for growing boys and girls. However, in the middle of the day on Friday, one of the experts on the menu responded to our email. They gave us a fantastic description on the process in which they send out the forms relating to food allergies, and even a copy of one of the forms. Our plan heading forward, is to stay in contact with LAUSD, and continue our pursuit to help make gluten free lunches easy and accessible at LAUSD schools. Once we get back to class we will evaluate the system and try and find spots where we can make a difference. We also reached out to two specific elementary schools. Kenter Canyon Charter (where Jake went) and Marquez Charter. With the knowledge we know possess, we plan to specifically focus on impacting those two schools considering they are in our community. As far as the group has been working, everyone has cooperated, and a lot of work is getting completed.
Imagine not being able to eat any food with gluten, or anything made near it. Well, this problem exists for the 2.2 million Americans affected yearly. We need to help make a change. Hi, we are Aliya, Delaney, Jake, and Jack and we are here to help impact the effect of Celiac disease in our community. Celiac disease is an autoimmune disease that damages cells in the intestine when gluten is eaten. In other words, the gluten attacks the body. Because of the lack of gluten, people aren’t able to absorb nutrients and vitamins that are needed and they become very weak. Sadly, many people don’t know about Celiac Disease and since there is no cure, the most that we can do is inform the public to be aware and give more dietary options to the people with the disease. Our first objective is to raise awareness in the community. As you know, Celiac has a big impact on America. However, it is not well known. By raising awareness, we will get more people to understand the negative impact of our disease. Once the people of our community understand the impact of our disease, they will help us. With the people of our community behind us, we feel like we can make a dent in Celiac Disease.
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Who are we?Delaney Knopp, Aliya Zigman, Jake Shapiro, and Jack Kwit |