SEQUIM — The scent of cinnamon rolls in the morning did it. Those rolls, which call out to elementary-school children with their aroma and sugary glaze, drove Robert Converse to seek a $100,000 grant from Washington State University.
Converse is father to Diana, a fourth-grader at Helen Haller Elementary.
Last spring he noticed the cinnamon rolls in her cafeteria.
While Diana was delighted with the menu item, Converse went to a Sequim School District Board of Directors meeting to express concern.
The rolls’ high sugar content, he said, make them a poor choice for children starting the school day.
The School Board listened without commenting, as did district Superintendent Garn Christensen.
The school district covers the Dungeness Valley and the Gardiner area of Jefferson County.
“I’m not going to talk about taking one specific item off the menu because one person doesn’t like it,” Christensen said in a later interview.
Other parents might want raw milk instead of pasteurized, honey instead of sugar, or tofu instead of chicken, and the school district cannot cater to such preferences, he added.
The food in Sequim’s school cafeterias comes from Sodexho, the food-service giant that provides cafeteria breakfasts for less than $1 each.
These meals — which feature the cinnamon rolls twice a month and other choices like pancake-wrapped sausages, french toast, cold cereals and cheese sticks — meet federal regulations, said Laurie Campen, the Sequim schools’ director of food service.
Government guidelines call for breakfasts totaling 500 calories for children age 7 to 10, Campen noted.
“The cinnamon rolls help us meet the calorie requirement,” she said. “They’re only 170 calories,” so children have a small smorgasbord from which to choose fruit, yogurt, milk, juice and other packaged foods.
“People tell me, ‘Diana can make a choice,”‘ and eat something other than the sweet pastry, Converse said.
But that cinnamon scent is a powerful thing, especially where children are concerned.
“Diana is mad at me for trying to get rid of them,” said Converse.
His efforts, however, have grown, like a tomato vine in September, far beyond the one menu item.
Converse is working with Kia Kozun, a manager of Nash’s Organic Produce, and other local farmers on a venture they call Olympic Harvest.
The budding nonprofit group is applying for a $100,000 Washington State University Agricultural Pilots Project grant that would establish a wide-ranging program in Sequim.
If Olympic Harvest wins the grant, it would hire an operations manager, rent office space and conduct research on how to bring locally grown foods — from carrots to apples to strawberry jam — onto school children’s plates.
