RE Log Spring 2022

8 Ransom Everglades LOG SPRING 2022 inspired way of thinking,” explained Christopher Tricarico, Senior Executive Director of the NYC DOE’s Office of Food and Nutrition Services. At Ransom Everglades, Wellness in the Schools is working with RE staff and SAGE Dining Services, the vendor that provides meals on both campuses, to find ways to improve the healthfulness of the school’s offerings and, perhaps, incorporate nutrition education into the school’s curriculum. “The best part about doing this work is that when you stay with it for all these years, you can truly see the value on many levels,” Easton said. “You can see it in large institutions like the NYC DOE, in parents who are taking the lessons home and, most importantly, in children who devour a kale salad on their lunch line after insisting that they will never like it.” Easton is excited: unlike places in the Northeast, where schools are in session precisely when crops aren’t growing, South Florida’s mild climate presents rich opportunities for locavore procurement. WITS has already made significant partnerships with around a dozen schools in the region, including McNicol Middle School in Broward County (serving 796 students per day) and Charles R. Drew K-8 Center in Brownsville (serving 693). The organization has also partnered with some big-name chefs, including Chef Michael Schwartz P’15 of Michael’s Genuine Food & Drink and Chef Aaron Brooks of Miami’s Four Seasons Hotel. But Easton is also excited because Miami is the place where her lifelong passion for healthy eating began. Born and raised in Key Biscayne, she has fond memories of her mother, a “bit of a hippie” who was into healthy eating before it was cool, baking vegan carob brownies and selling crates full of grapefruit and oranges (rather than candy) at team fundraisers. One day, her mother brought home chickens so that the family could have fresh eggs – not an entirely foreign concept in Miami, but fairly uncommon for suburban Key Biscayne in the late ’70s. The chickens didn’t last. “They were doing okay, but the possums were interested in them, so my dad built a chicken coop for them. The possums got in and the chickens never got out,” she recalled. But she was still inspired by her mother’s example, which had changed the way she looked at food and its impact on a person’s wellbeing as well as the environment. After attending Key Biscayne K-8 Center (a school with which her organization has now partnered), she attended Ransom Everglades for middle school, where she remembers having a social justice bent. She did well academically and excelled in sports, but she found herself wishing for more opportunities to connect with people of different backgrounds. With her mother’s blessing, she transferred to Ponce de Leon Middle School and then Coral Gables High School, where she finished her degree. Chef Andrew Benson and Nancy Easton ’84 meet with Head of School Penny Townsend and board chair Jeff Hicks ’84