PEACH COUNTY, Ga. — Peach County students line up for lunch through the district's summer meals program, which includes a balanced diet of fruits and vegetables.
"They're fresh, just so fresh. I especially like the tomatoes, so ripe," student Evan Alonzo said.
School nutritionist Matoshia Lewis works to fulfill the state's goal of providing students with healthier foods.
"The state of Georgia would like to have at least half of a child's plate with fresh locally-grown fruits and vegetables," Lewis said.
She contacted Pure Flavor's Chief Marketing Director Chris Veillon for help, starting with Hunt Elementary, where 84% of students live at or below the poverty line.
"We are supplying the school with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers every week, through the end of the school season, and now, in the summer months, we're supporting the summer meals program with fresh tomatoes and cucumbers through the month of June," Veillon said.
"We're picking up twice a week, at the greenhouse and we would take it out to the different sites and they would prep it and serve it to the students," Lewis said.
The summer meals program serves all students under the age of 18.
Pure Flavor will go back to donating to Hunt Elementary next school year and host a field trip for students.
"It's kind of a Space Age-looking building when you drive by -- really not sure what's behind the glass -- so the opportunity to teach kids how greenhouse-grown tomatoes and cucumbers come to life is a great opportunity for us, not only to educate and inform them, but start creating consumers for life," Veillon said.
"They look amazing. I would eat these every day if I had the chance to," Alonzo said.
The kitchen staff creatively put the vegetables in little baggies for the students to take home and chopped them up in bite-sized pieces so they could dip them in ranch.
Pure Flavor donates up to 60 cases of cucumbers and tomatoes a week and plans to add peppers into that mix for the upcoming school year.