Chef 'Moves' to Manassas School

Charles Gilliam, chef and owner of Okra's restaurant in Old Town, has teamed up with Metz Middle School as part of  the Chefs Move to Schools national program.

I'm really excited and honored that Metz Middle School has asked me to be apart of this program, said Gilliam, who has worked the past week inside the school's cafeteria to learn more about how a school lunch is prepared.

"At Okra's, we run with 20 stove burners; at Metz, they only have two but feed 1,000 kids in two hours, Gilliam said. "I'm kind of like the new guy coming in learning their techniques and ordering."

Gilliam said he is also trying to learn more about what the kids like to eat.

"...They like to eat a lot of this a la carte stuff (like) pizza, french fries."

Manassas City Schools has obtained grants to support the program. Gilliam agrees if the program goes well at Metz, he wants to branch out to more city schools.

"If this goes well enough, we're going to try and take it to another school in the city... this may take a couple of years but if it goes gangbusters we want it in every school in the city!"

The Chefs Move to Schools program was created under First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move campaign, started in February of 2010 in hopes of solving the ever growing nationwide childhood obesity problem.

The Chefs initiative  is currently operated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program urges chefs to participate with a local school and to "work with teachers, parents, school nutritionists and administrators to help educate children and show that nutrition can be fun."

Childhood obesity rates have tripled in the last three decades. One goal of the Let's Move campaign is improving school lunches for more than 31 million children that participate in the National School Lunch program and 11 million more enrolled in the National School Breakfast Program.

"We are going to need everyone's time and talent to solve the childhood obesity epidemic and our Nation's chefs have tremendous power as leaders on this issue because of their deep knowledge of food and nutrition and their standing in the community. I want to thank them for joining the Let's Move! Campaign"

         - First Lady Michelle Obama

With more than a thousand chefs enrolled in the program, which assists over 500 schools, the initiative has now reached Manassas. Stay tuned for how Charles' week went at Metz and ideas he has for a healthy alternative meal plan.