So at Mars Academy with the foods we’re serving the children, what we’re providing them is 100% conscious for the children’s best interests, for the planet’s best interests, and for the animals’ best interests as well.

Informed viewers, welcome to another edition of Good People, Good Works. Today is the last day of the 2011 World Week for the Abolition of Meat, an annual event organized by an international movement with the following goal: “To abolish the raising, fishing, and hunting of animals for their flesh, as well as the sale and consumption of animal flesh.”

In past years, observances of the week have been held in over 50 cities in the following countries: Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, England, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland and the USA. In honor of this global happening, we are featuring two schools in the US that truly represent the spirit of World Week for the Abolition of Meat, as they offer only veg food to their students!

They are the Mars Academy in Encino, California and the Alachua Learning Center in Alachua, Florida. Let’s first head to the southeastern US to find out more about the charming Alachua Learning Center (ALC).

Halo, I’m Tom Allin. I’m the director of the Alachua Learning Center charter school. Charter schools are Florida public schools. They’re open to the public and we serve the public, but charter schools can develop their individual personalities; they’re allowed to develop on their own. This school emphasizes a very healthy diet.

Those who formed the school back in 1999, chose to emphasize in the cafeteria a vegetarian diet, a healthy one, in which the food is prepared on the spot every day, and that includes fresh bread, fresh vegetables, and we don’t use very much canned products at all. We try to avoid that, so that’s our goal. There’s been a lot literature produced over the years which indicates that a healthy diet does affect the academic performance of the students.

This 165-student combination primary and middle school has a tradition of academic success with the youngsters consistently scoring high in statewide standardized exams and the institution having been awarded the prestigious “Federal Dissemination Grant” for excellence in curriculum development and application.

The Alachua Learning Center has been recognized by the Governor of the state as well as by various agencies of the Department of Education for excellence. This is primarily, again, I believe, because of the dedication of each and every staff member. We’re very careful to select people who will consider education to be a life’s mission, something that they enjoy. When they get up in the morning, they look forward to taking care of the students in their classroom and they’re dedicated to them and the parents. So this is our satisfaction.

As a matter of fact, last year, the Alachua Learning Center, a little humble charter school, was third place in the whole state of Florida in the state FCAT (Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test) testing in writing. And in this county we were recognized as, and many times over the years, as the top school, be it in reading or science, and many times in math in the FCAT testing. So we do have some statistical evidence that we’re doing a good job.

There is another area where ALC is tops and that’s the vegetarian cafeteria! Fresh fare such as salads, soups, and whole grain breads are prepared each day by the caring cooks. Mexican, Italian, and Indian entrees are offered as well as traditional American favorites. Only wholesome and nutritious meals are given to students, with fast-food and junk food never allowed on the menu. About 97% of the students partake of the school’s veg-only lunch program.

In 2005, a national magazine ranked the cafeteria as one of the top ten primary school cafeterias in the nation for the tastiness of its offerings and because it is exclusively vegetarian. The People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has also given an award to Alachua Learning Center for serving compassionate lunches.

Our school was formed in 1999. We’ve been existing now for eleven years, and in the course of time we’ve been observed by various organizations, sometimes unbeknownst to us. There’s one magazine called “Nick Jr.” It’s a parenting magazine; it gave us an award. One day we received it in the mail and a phone call, that we had been chosen as one of the top ten cafeterias in the country, recognized by Nick Jr., magazine. So we feel honored by that.

We now shift to the West Coast of the US to meet Dr. Andy Mars, director of the Mars Academy, a non-profit private institution that is a combination primary and secondary school. Dr. Mars, a vegan, has a Ph.D. in education and has always loved teaching and counseling children.

He is a founding member of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a US-based group of physicians and concerned citizens that works to promote the benefits of a plant-based diet, and of EarthSave, which promotes the vegan diet in less affluent California communities. Dr. Mars now discusses the school’s founding principles.

One of the things I had to fill out for the government was, “What are the key values that make your school the school that it is?” And I started to write down for this particular form. The first thing I wrote was “morality.” It’s not that we have to raise our children either to be able to do this, or to be able to this, to know this, or to know that. We can do it all. There’s no reason that we cannot. We can truly be renaissance people.

But…if I had to have the choice between a child being raised with the greatest moral consciousness, having that concept of being a truly ethical, compassionate, responsible world citizen, but educationally, being greatly lacking, or at the other end of the spectrum, if I had to have a child who was most academically brilliant, knew everything, just incredible developed intelligence, but being greatly morally lacking, to me it’s not a difficult choice to make, not that we have to make that choice.

But so I wrote down the first value of this school is morality. Then I wrote down academics. These children will learn academics unlike anywhere else, because they are learning on an individualized level, every child is being given the opportunity to learn at the level that he or she is ready for, at the pace he or she is ready for, in the manner that he or she is ready for.

Everyone gets that one-on-one education, and academically these children will be able to grow by leaps and bounds like no educational system I have ever seen. So I wrote down morality, I wrote down academics. Then I wrote down reasoning.

One of the school’s most special aspects is its promotion of the vegan diet, with only plant-based foods served to students. We asked Dr. Mars about his decision to provide only life-affirming foods to the children.

What we eat plays a significant role in all of our lives. It helps us be healthy or not healthy. It helps us be more conscious or less conscious. At the school, any food we provide these children is 100% vegan. We are the only totally vegan school certainly in the United States and possibly in the world. We serve the children healthy, conscious foods.

Children will be exposed to some foods that are totally new to them, and also we will use foods that children grow up with that are very comfortable foods, they’ll just be better versions of those foods. We serve the children totally vegan meals. Most of our food ingredients, where possible, will be organic, certainly not genetically modified organisms.

We are very conscious of the food we put into the children’s bodies for multiple reasons. Number one: We want the children to grow up to be these morally conscious human beings and one cannot be totally morally conscious while they’re eating a dead animal. We want the children to grow up to be these ecologically conscious and active human beings, and one cannot truly be ecologically conscious while eating animal products.

We’re very conscious about not giving the children the chemical foods that so many children in our world today grow up with. Mainstream schools realize that obesity is a problem. They’re not taking the steps necessary to actually solve it appropriately, by changing the foods we serve our children and moving away from all the horrid animal products, by moving away from the chemical products, by moving away from the processed sugars.

Dr. Mars also offers other educational enrichment activities for children such as week-long overnight camps called “Camp Exploration” where only vegan meals are served. Each camp has a unique focus such as hiking or winter sports activities. He has also started a group called “Veg Kids” that enables vegetarian and vegan youngsters to meet and share their experiences.

I am connecting veg kids with other veg kids, giving them an opportunity to go to an event, and know that they’re not alone. (They can) feel the support of others around them who are going through the very same things. “Veg Kids” has say, a vegan pizza party, and it’s a wonderful thing. It’s not the food that makes the difference to them, it’s the fact that they’re surrounded by other kids who believe the same thing and are trying to live the same way, as opposed to feeling like they have to somehow fit in with the others around them.

Our kudos Alachua Learning Center and Mars Academy for offering children healthful, delicious meals that protect the environment and the lives of our animal friends. May other schools around the world soon provide only animal-free foods to their students.

For more details on the schools featured today, please visit the following websites:
Alachua Learning Center - www.Home.ALCportal.com
Mars Academy - www.MarsAcademy.org

Inspiring viewers, thank you for your company on today’s Good People, Good Works. Coming up next is The World Around Us after Noteworthy News. May all youngsters have the opportunity to learn and reach their potential.