[Speaker 1]

Jane Velez-Mitchell here. What an extraordinary show we have for you today. That’s right, the headline you’re looking at is true.

 

Plant-based schools are begging Uncle Sam for lunch money. And we’ve got some really breaking news for you to hear. Believe it or not, this is an extraordinary plant-based school in Tarpon Springs, Florida, the Solid Rock Community School, where they serve their students gourmet meals.

 

They also, by the way, train the kids to become gourmet chefs in the process. It’s an absolutely extraordinary school. The parents love it.

 

The kids love it. They’re getting healthy, nutritious gourmet meals. There’s only one little problem.

 

The National School Lunch Program requires dairy, dairy, that’s right, the breast milk of cows, to be offered with school lunches in order for schools to get federal reimbursement. Even though the National Institutes of Health itself reports that a staggering 68% of humans are lactose intolerant. Now, for kids who are lactose intolerant, that carton of cow’s milk can lead to stomach upset, discomfort, and even more serious digestive issues.

 

That’s why Solid Rock Community School in Florida has taken a bold step to continue to serve their kids plant-based meals free of any meat or dairy and now is appealing to the federal government. Please, please give us that reimbursement even though we are not feeding cow’s milk to the kids. As we just said, the federal government itself says that 68% of humans are lactose intolerant.

 

Why this really outdated, unhealthy rule that breast milk of cows must be fed to kids in order for us taxpayers to reimburse for meals? I want to go straight out to the director of the Solid Rock Community School. She’s an extraordinary woman.

 

This school is so amazing on so many levels, we haven’t even scratched the surface yet. Michele Fasnacht, explain to us what’s going on with the federal government, how you are literally begging Uncle Sam to get some reimbursement for these lunches and that they’re giving you a hard time just because you are not serving dairy products. Yes, I definitely will, but two things I want to say real quick.

We are one of only two schools in the country that serve 100% plant-based lunches, so meals that are healthy, inclusive, and compassionate. And every day our students get to enjoy that food that’s made from scratch by our chefs, Chef John, who’s here with us today also, filled with fresh produce and completely free of dairy and animal products. But the challenge is exactly what you said.

 

The federal government, the NSLP, which is who reimburses for lunch, will not reimburse us, not even the $4 per meal that other schools get. And that’s a really, really big financial burden for us, of course, because we can’t get that. What every other school in the country can get, we can’t get, because we don’t include dairy on our menu.

 

So it’s a really big challenge. So what’s the solution? What’s the solution?

 

So we’re trying everything we can with NSLP to come up. We’re very creative and we’re working with our parents and our families very closely right now. We may have a pathway in.

 

We’ll see. And if we do, we’ll be able to let everybody know. We’re working on that.

 

In the meantime, we are trying to fundraise, because even, let’s just say we do get a pathway in as the first school, okay? The $4 per meal that it reimburses is not enough per meal with what it costs to make the kids’ lunches, unfortunately. So even if we do receive that, it still isn’t enough.

 

But of course, that majorly helps. So we are doing everything in our power to make a stand, to fight for that. We are communicating with them.

 

We have some ideas and a path forward that may work, and we hope to know within the next month or two if that’s going to work or not. But regardless, we are definitely fundraising, because we are trying to fundraise money that will help with this program no matter what. Because we have about 200 students.

 

Half of them would qualify for the free and reduced lunch program, and these kids need to eat. And we really need this program for our kids. So we are here today fundraising.

 

I know that we have a link where people can help if they’re interested in, and it has like $7 a day, feeds a child for one day, $35 for a week, and so on. If anybody wants to help, that is amazing. What we are trying to do right now is everything we can with our families and parents, and trying to come up with a pathway for these kids who are low income, who need free and reduced lunch to be able to eat every day.

 

Because we serve fresh, chef-prepared, plant-based meals, because every child deserves food that nourishes their body and aligns with their values of health, kindness, and sustainability. This isn’t just lunch for us. It’s literally a lesson in compassion.

 

Every single day, every bite shows students that they can eat well without harm. It’s an amazing thing. It’s very important, and we’re close.

 

We’re close to being able to be this first school in. We hope that this happens, but one way or another, we definitely need help. Now, if you were able to achieve this, this could be a groundbreaking landmark breakthrough, because so many kids do not want to consume dairy.

 

There’s an extraordinary amount of those milk cartons, cow’s milk cartons that are thrown in the garbage. You’ve got a situation where cows are being, let’s just call it what it is, tortured in industrialized animal agriculture, forcibly impregnated, their babies ripped from them at birth, and all of that so that we humans can steal their breast milk. Then we give it to kids who very well may be lactose intolerant, and a lot of them just don’t like to drink cow’s milk anymore.

 

It’s not a thing. This isn’t Leave it to Beaver in the 1960s. Kids aren’t sitting down and gulping down milk the way they did in the old TV shows, and so they throw it out.

 

You’ve got the waste, the pollution, the environmental damage from the animal agriculture industry, the torture of animals. Then for those kids who drink it, they may very well be lactose intolerant. Why is the federal government insisting on this?

 

There’s a lot of reasons. Funding for the federal government and SLP, it’s very much involved with the USDA, trying not to get too much into that today. It’s a very complicated situation.

 

You’re familiar with the way the funding happens. When you understand where the funding is coming from, you can understand why the rules are the way they are. Rules are changing.

 

I can tell you when we first started the school years ago, you had to have meat on the menu too. You had to have animal meat and dairy. Now animal meat is not a requirement.

 

Now they do allow tofu, tempeh, nuts, and seeds. That is good. We’ve made progress there.

 

The dairy is now the last step of progress. I’m really hoping that’s going to change in the future. We really need it for our school because we are 100% a plant-based kitchen.

 

We’ve never had dairy or animal products in our kitchen. We won’t put them in our kitchen. For all of the same reasons that you just said, let’s look at this in reality.

 

A plant-based diet has been linked to childhood obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease. We know there’s a lot of gastrointestinal issues, just like you said, with so many kids being lactose intolerant. I think you said 68% are globally lactose intolerant, if I heard you right.

 

I know it’s 75% in people with color. It’s 90% in Asian communities. It’s a serious thing.

 

That’s the majority of the population is lactose intolerant, but yet we’re still pushing it on people. We’re still requiring it to be an option in school cafeterias. It’s just wild.

 

In the public school, I believe that most of them do have options. They can have soy milk and cow’s milk, but we don’t want cow’s milk in our kitchen because we are an exclusive plant-based school. Because of that, because we are exclusively plant-based, we can’t get any funding.

 

There’s only two schools in the U.S. that can’t qualify for funding for that reason. It’s just unacceptable. It just doesn’t make any sense.

 

We know that plant-based meals improve focus. They improve academic performance. Here in schools, we’re pushing something on kids that most of the kids actually really don’t want.

 

As we’ve said, it’s not healthy for human health. Then, of course, we know all the environmental issues and the animal issues, of course. Well, it’s absolutely absurd.

 

As a taxpayer, I would like to be able to donate to your kids who are in the low-income community and allow the federal government to have that kind of reimbursement. It’s absolutely ridiculous. I’m certainly going to donate.

 

SolidRockFlorida.org forward slash unshamed. We’ve got a special link that you can use to donate. Again, just any amount, $7, $10, $20 will go to feeding these students as Michelle, the director of a Solid Rock community school and her team fight to get the U.S. government to drop this ridiculous rule. The idea that you have to beg for reimbursement for lunch money is absolutely insane. This school is so amazing in so many ways. Just researching it a little bit, scratching the surface, I was blown away.

 

On top of serving their kids gourmet culinary meals, they also have a culinary school. As the kids are serving and eating, they are also being trained to be top chefs and any number of other roles in the culinary world. Let’s take a look.

 

Solid Rock Cooks is a new high school culinary program that’s offered at Solid Rock Community School. This program gives our students hands-on experience in the kitchen while they’re earning career certifications for jobs in culinary arts, food service, and the hospitality industry. Students will be prepping, cooking, and serving lunches daily, becoming an essential part of our school’s exclusive plant-based kitchen, which focuses on health, sustainability, and culinary innovation.

 

[Speaker 2]

The whole program is structured over a two-year period so that they have a full, complete, and comprehensive understanding of handling food.

 

[Speaker 1]

It’s entree dishes, desserts, getting familiar with different types of foods. Throughout the day, other than learning, they also do a daily routine. They work lunch shifts and they’re assigned stations.

 

We rotate through the stations so that they get an equal amount of grill work as well as serving. And on top of that, you get to train these kids into how to eat healthy for the rest of their lives. I wish I had gone to a school that did this.

 

That would have saved me a lot of burnt pans for one thing. So Chef John Lancey, so glad to have you here with us. Tell us, Chef John, how do you train these kids and do they enjoy it?

 

Oh, well, it’s a daily training schedule. How do I train them? It’s a lot of hands-on.

 

They do take certain courses, especially when it comes to health and hygiene, proper sanitation protocols. They’re all certified. They get their food handlers card for here in Florida.

 

And then the training process is basically, we target certain areas and we focus on those. And then, of course, they can bring in any request to me about, hey, I really want to learn how to make pineapple upside down cake. Okay, let’s, on Thursday, we’ll make that.

 

And then on Friday, we also spend a lot of time sitting down outside of the kitchen and actually work on some other things that don’t actually require stirring or chopping or frying. So, yeah, so the kids come in and they’re based, they’re staggered throughout the day so that basically there’s somebody every period in the kitchen. If not one, there’s maybe two or three.

 

And then, as I said, as you saw in the video, each of them workstation so that they get that hands-on experience. And then, of course, training-wise is like I actually work with them side by side so that they, you know, understand what they’re doing. And then I think the experience themselves having to do it, actually, they gain all that confidence and then they get better at it because, as we know, the more we practice, the better we get.

 

So, they enjoy it. Most of them started just not so much to have a career per se in culinary or to go get a cooking job. Most of them stated to me that they did it because they wanted to learn how to cook.

 

And I thought that was fantastic. You know, going way back when my kids were in high school, I really wished that there was like home ec and things like when I was in school where they could actually get an understanding of at least how to boil spaghetti. I don’t think that gets taught these days.

 

And I think a lot of families are very busy. So, I don’t know if that’s actually getting passed down generationally. So, I’m really happy that the program started in school.

 

The kids are really excited about cooking. Plus, they feel part of a team and camaraderie. And they’re proud to be part of the team.

 

And it definitely helps in selling the rest of the student body on, hey, you should try it. It’s really good. And hearing that from their peers is different than an adult telling them, eat your greens.

 

[Speaker 2]

So.

 

[Speaker 1]

It’s absolutely extraordinary. I think every school, first of all, I think every school should be plant-based, but they should also train kids how to establish habits that are going to carry them through the rest of their lives. I’m always marveling that schools don’t teach things like how to balance a checkbook.

 

When I was 18 years old with my, well, 22 on my first job, and I had no idea how to balance a checkbook because nobody taught me. It took me a couple of years to learn that. And as a result, I ate popcorn from Monday through Friday because I spent my check every Friday night.

 

That’s another story. But the point is that these are life skills that schools should be teaching. And yes, geometry and algorithms are all well and good, but these are real life skills that I really feel that kids should learn in order to be healthy.

 

And one of the things you mentioned is that parents are busy. And this is one of the reasons why we have 43% of the United States obese because parents don’t have the time to cook properly for their kids. And they’re all eating at fast food, operative word, fast food filled with meat and dairy.

 

And that is making America sick to the point where there are a whole bunch of programs, which we will not debate today, about how to undo all that. Some of them better than others for sure. But what’s really amazing about your school is that you were also teaching the parents how to eat healthy.

 

And this really blew my mind that you actually have a parental aspect of this. Let’s check it out. We started an initiative called Solid Rock Eats, where we are actually making plant-based foods available to our families.

 

We have a plant-based menu and parents can order it for dinner, just like they would order it from a restaurant. And Solid Rock Eats, they can actually order it online. When they pick their kids up from school, they can pick up the food to go home for dinner that night.

 

I’m really excited for it because it has some of my very favorite foods on the menu. That’s fascinating. So how do you take on so much?

 

I mean, it seems just extraordinary that you’re doing all of this. Are you asking me? Yes, I am.

 

You, the director. Okay. Well, I’m definitely a visionary and I definitely know what I love, right?

 

And I can you, I’m just a regular person. I love to eat. I do not love to cook.

 

And parents tell me this all of the time. And so what do parents do is they do exactly what you said, is they drive through on the way home through fast food, or they have processed food that they heat up in the microwave. And so as I heard parents actually talking about that and then saying all the time, they would say, I wish I could eat what the kids are having for lunch.

 

They would say it all the time is, oh, I wish I could have lunch here. Then it was like, wow, well, we’re making it for lunch anyway. While we’re making it for lunch, why don’t we just let parents order it for dinner?

 

So we’re already doing it. Chef John is in the kitchen cooking. He’s taking orders.

 

He’s preparing food. Why not just allow the parents to order it for dinner? And then when they come to pick up their kids, they can pick up dinner too.

 

It was just such common sense in reality. It’s just, it’s something that nobody thinks about, but it really is common sense. Absolutely amazing.

 

And just when you thought, okay, that’s what they’re doing, they can’t do anything else. Au contraire. I literally had to, we could be here for hours talking about all the programs, but one of the programs that’s so incredible, it’s a plant-based school and they also teach compassion to animals, not hypothetically or theoretically, but hands on.

 

And it’s something called the SAVE program. Let’s play this and talk about it on the other side. This is absolutely amazing.

 

Come on, Matthew.

 

[Speaker 2]

I just love animals and I wanted to come here because it’s a different type of schooling.

 

[Speaker 1]

So the intention of the SAVE program is to teach animal welfare and veterinary education while also incorporating the academic disciplines required of students to graduate.

 

[Speaker 2]

This is an animal sanctuary, but it’s also their campus. It’s where they go to school.

 

[Speaker 1]

It’s where they learn. They’re taking science classes, math classes that other high school students take as well, but they’re also learning about animals and animal training and veterinary medicine. So they get all of the credits that you would normally get in a regular school with that humane themed education.

 

[Speaker 2]

And then they also receive additional credits on top of that. We have pigeons and ducks, parrots, lemurs, marmosets, sulcata tortoises. When these animals don’t have a home, there’s not a lot of sanctuaries out there that can take them and care for them just because they don’t have the right enclosures, the right property, the right feed sources.

 

[Speaker 1]

There’s nothing really like the SAVE program. We have a whole sanctuary here and we take care of these animals every day. Wow.

 

It just blows my mind. How many animals do you have? And tell us about this program.

 

So, well, the SAVE program stands for Sanctuary for Animals and Veterinary Education. And it started two years ago. So we just finished our second year and it was a pilot program on a very small micro campus that’s down the street from our main campus.

 

You’ll be hearing more about that in the weeks to come. But small, tiny campus. And we started with a few animals and with a few students and we wanted to see how it went.

 

We wanted to see how would parents receive it? How would students receive it? How would it work out?

 

And wow, oh my gosh, it just got amazing so quick. And so all of the students in the program, now understand this is a micro campus. So it’s only two acres.

 

It’s very small. We only have a small group of students in the program because it’s so little that we can only fit so many. But we started with a few animals and now we have probably like 50 something.

 

And we have so many kinds of animals. It’s just grown and changed so much. It’s been truly an amazing experience.

 

The best part of my day or my week is when I am at that campus. There is nothing better than having that time with the animals. So the safe students are those who are interested in careers with animals.

 

So whether it might be a veterinarian or a vet tech or a vet assistant or a wildlife rehabber or an animal rights attorney. We’ve had two that have from being in the program, that’s where they’ve decided to go. Whatever that may be, they’re in this program where they spend part of their day every day with the animals.

 

And so they get to feed the animals. They get to give them water and enrichment activities. And I mean, they’re involved in everything.

 

And then our vet is there and our vet does, whether it’s vaccines, if there’s a surgery that’s needed, the students are there to assist or shadow. We also have a grooming program on site there and we work with the local rescues. And so when the local rescues have dogs that come in, that come in dirty and matted, our students groom those dogs for free.

 

And then the rescue’s able to find them a forever home. So it’s a beautiful thing. The kids are working with exotic animals like we have that live forever on our campus.

 

And then we’re working with the rescues to help them find homes for domesticated animals. So they get so much experience with so many kinds of animals. And like you saw, we have lemurs and marmosets and tortoises and parrots and pigeons and ducks.

 

I’m going to forget someone. And pigs. And so many more.

 

Oh, monk jack deer and wallabies. I mean, it’s just, it’s an amazing situation. And I’ve never experienced anything like this in my life.

 

And the way that it changes kids, Jane, I cannot tell you. Because right now we’re talking about the SAVE students. We have seen students completely transform their lives from being in this program.

 

But it’s not just for the SAVE students. The SAVE students get to be there every day. And they’re working, you know, they’re actually doing like important tasks with veterinary skills and things like that.

 

But all of our students, K through 12, get opportunities with the animals. They get to go and visit. And they get to, maybe, it depends who the animal is.

 

They might get, particularly with the farm animals, they’ll get to feed the farm animals. They might get to groom the farm animals. They definitely get to read to the farm animals.

 

Sing to them. They have certain animals like our emus who love to play chase. They love to run around.

 

So it’s great. And when you take the kids there, here’s what I always try to explain to parents and then to people. There are kids who in language arts class, you ask them to read.

 

And they’re too shy to read in front of the class. But Jane, guess who they will read to? The animals, right?

 

They will read to the animals. Then we have kids who maybe just are really shy with their peers. And they don’t want to really communicate with them or play with them.

 

But they will play with the animals. So we see these kids just really come out of their own box or their own shyness, whatever it may be. And they develop confidence.

 

And they love the animals. It is the favorite time of every student’s week and month when they get to go over there and have time with the animals. So regardless of what it is, everybody can’t wait to go.

 

And I’ll tell you a funny story one day. We were at the sanctuary. And one of our kindergarten students was looking at the ring-tailed lemurs.

 

And they were in their big outdoor enclosure. And it’s really big. And it has runways shooting off of every direction.

 

And the little boy started running. And the ring-tailed lemurs started chasing him. And then they were going back and forth.

 

And I mean, it was, oh, my gosh. And then the ring-tailed lemurs were like, play, play, play with me. And they were chasing.

 

And they were running around. It was the cutest thing I ever saw. And I turned to the sanctuary manager, Kayla.

 

And I looked at her. And I said, Kayla, why did we not know that the ring-tailed lemurs wanted to play chase? Why?

 

Why did we not know that? And Kayla looked at me and said, Michelle, it’s because we’re old. And we’re not running around like that.

 

And at that moment, I was like, oh, my gosh. She is so right. There are things that kids and kindergartners are going to be doing that old people like me are not going to be doing.

 

And it’s so amazing when you see, when this little boy comes on campus, the ring-tailed lemurs start jumping up and down and running because they immediately recognize him. And they want him to start playing with them. And it’s the cutest thing in the world.

 

So those moments are so important. So whether it’s any student of our campus or it’s the SAVE students, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the staff members, we’re all learning. We’re all having these experiences.

 

And nothing teaches compassion, empathy, and responsibility like times and experiences with animals. So you’re a nonprofit. So if people donate, do they get a tax deduction?

 

Absolutely. Absolutely, they can get that for sure. So you’re a 501c3 nonprofit school?

 

Yep. And that doesn’t help you get the reimbursement from the government? Nope.

 

Well, when it comes to the federal program, so if you’re talking back about lunch, it has nothing to do with 501c3 to my knowledge, but it all has to do with serving dairy. I mean, it comes down to one thing. You have to meet their menu requirements.

 

So nothing else matters, but you have to meet their menu. I mean, there’s other things that matter too, but that’s the reason we can’t get it is because you have to meet their menu requirements. And those menu requirements include dairy.

 

Now, how are you going to get this exemption? I mean, have you’ve applied for an exemption saying, okay, we have a plant-based school. That means we don’t serve dairy.

 

Give us an exemption. When will you find out? We’ll find out a hundred percent for sure.

 

It sounds like a few weeks after the school year starts. We will not know before the school year starts. It’s a whole process.

 

There are a lot of hoops to jump through. We are literally jumping through hoops like you have never seen before. There’s so many things to do and we’re in the process of doing them all.

 

Just so you know, we used to have NSLP years ago because we weren’t a plant-based school when we opened. In the year 2004, and we weren’t plant-based then. And when we went plant-based and we couldn’t get it, and at that time you had to have meat and dairy on the menu, we just walked away from it.

 

And then for the last, I think it’s been about five years, we’ve been trying to get it just over and over again, and we haven’t been able to. And now we think we found a new pathway in. It looks more positive than before, but there’s still no guarantee at all.

 

And we won’t find out until after the school year begins. I think it’s so insane. Now, somebody asked in a comment, what about the possibility of a lawsuit?

 

Well, you know, that has been brought up to us before. I will tell you, I guess it was about five years ago, I had someone contact me about that. And I will tell you, and I will be transparent and honest with you, at the time that I was asked about it, five or six years ago, I was afraid of that.

 

And I was like, oh, I don’t want to get involved with that. Because at that moment, we had just bought this new campus that we’re in, and it was the first campus we ever had that had our own commercial kitchen. So even though our school wasn’t serving food with animal products at that time, we also didn’t have our own kitchen.

 

And so here we move in, we buy a new campus, we move into it, we have our own kitchen, and we’re doing something that only one other school in the United States is doing. And I was really afraid of getting into any kind of issues. I was really nervous about it.

 

Now I have much more confidence. So I do feel like I’m in a different place. We have talked to a lot of people about that.

 

And it doesn’t sound like it’s really would go anywhere. But I’m not necessarily opposed to that. If we can’t get this to go through this time, I don’t know that we have any other options, because it’s not fair.

 

And let me tell you something, the $4 that they give a school a meal isn’t enough to take care of all the expenses that go along with the school kitchen. It does not cover it. It helps, but it doesn’t cover it.

 

But I mean, we need that to even be able to continue doing this. You know, looks like you’re serving these gourmet meals, of course, $4 isn’t going to cover it. It’s absolutely extraordinary.

 

And the other thing that is so amazing, and I want to bring John in the chef, is that you actually have a seed to table program. So on top of everything else with everything else, these kids are learning, they’re also learning to value the growing and the process of creating this food that goes onto our tables. Let me play a little video of your seed to table program.

 

Tell us about this, John. Okay, so our program mostly is head up by the science department, which is fantastic. So when they go to science class, not every single day because they have other subjects to learn, but they do spend quite a bit of time out in our garden.

 

Now, we focused mostly on vegetables for our salad bar in the beginning, just to get things kind of rolling. And then we got a little bit more adventurous with more root vegetables. You know, they take a lot more time.

 

So like, for instance, our potatoes were starting to come up near the end of the year. And, you know, like sometimes we’ll have a run on tomatoes, you know, we’ll be out of school for a week for, you know, Christmas break or something like that. But we’re starting to get it down to where we have a nice rotation and a nice cycle.

 

A lot of the students will start with the teacher and they will germinate the seeds. And, you know, like, as you can see some of the pictures, we’re doing everything from okra and tomatoes, carrots, potatoes, all kinds of leafy greens, because we also send a bunch down to the sanctuary. It’s important for us to keep the leafy greens, the veggie towers going regularly, always producing so that even when there’s no school, like I said, we have animals down at the sanctuary that love a lot of the good leafy greens, the dark leafy greens, as well as cucumbers and, you know, melons and things like that.

 

So it’s really a nice little thing that we got going. The kids find it so exciting. And then they go being all braggadocious and saying, oh, you like that tomato on your salad?

 

I grew that, you know, so it gives them some pride. Again, and they’re not even culinary students. These are just regular students.

 

I think most of it’s the elementary level that are out there, but we do employ some of the high school students, hey, I need you to help me pull some potatoes or onions or something. Sometimes it’s just weeding the garden beds. But yeah, so it’s been very, very well accepted.

 

The kids, like I said, they find it exciting to go out there and they’ll watch the progress of vegetables like peppers and tomatoes. Oh, look, it’s starting to turn red. And it gets all exciting for them.

 

And then they can go tell their parents. Yeah, it’s amazing. I hope they take that and keep going, you know?

 

Yeah.

 

[Speaker 2]

I hope they take it home.

 

[Speaker 1]

We’ve got some interesting things that are being asked here. What is the structure of the school? It’s nonprofit, but is it public or privately funded?

 

What ages? So we are a K through 12 school. So typically five years old to 18, approximately.

 

We are actually discussing opening a VPK for next school year. So we’ll know in the next week if that’s going to happen too. We are a nonprofit, but we’re open to the public.

 

So, you know, anybody can come here. It says, are we public or privately funded? So we’re privately funded through tuition.

 

We are in the state of Florida. So in the state of Florida, there are scholarships for everybody in the state of Florida, many different scholarships available. And our school does accept all of them.

 

So there’s many different ways to come into the school. And again, it’s K through 12. Wow.

 

So tell us about, you know, what happens to the kids when they graduate? What do they generally go into? How does your unique curriculum, which is so fantastic, help them in the real world?

 

Well, so I want to say something about our curriculum first. So we teach something that we designed. It’s called Compassionate Humane Education.

 

And it’s something that I’ve been working on literally for the whole 21 years we’ve been open. And it actually is going to be available to other schools in the very near future. And Compassionate Humane Education is really, it’s a way of teaching.

 

So compassion is the way that we teach and humane education is what we teach. And so that’s something that’s infused in our school day for all students. It’s just a part of how we do things and a part of our school culture here.

 

And that’s something that we do, but it’s something I hope to see every school do at some point. That would be a beautiful thing. So that is something that all the kids are learning.

 

So when they’re graduating, what are we hoping from our kids? I mean, obviously we’re hoping they’re going to be more compassionate and more humane people, right? They’re going to treat people better.

 

They’re going to treat animals better. They’re going to live with things in mind regarding the planet, regarding how they can be more sustainable. And then our students, just like at any school, they’re graduating and going off to college or going into the workplace or the military or whatever it may be.

 

I mean, we have lots of kids, they go to colleges in UF or USF because in the state of Florida, we have something here called the Florida Bright Future Scholarship. And so one thing that kids can earn while they’re in school and it will pay for them to go to a Florida college. So any student earning that usually stays here in Florida.

 

But I mean, we have kids who go off to college everywhere and they’re in every workplace, just like they would be at any school across the United States. The thing that I see differently about kids graduating from Solid Rock is really who they are, right? Who they are, what type of person that they are and how they’re going to treat other people, animals and the planet.

 

Absolutely amazing. Let’s take a look at what some of the parents have said would like to play this. The thing I like most about this school is how we can connect with the animals, people and the planet around us by just getting to know each other.

 

Since we’re a skill-based school, we play students based on their ability rather than just what grade they’re in. Solid Rock looks at your child as a whole in the entirety and they make sure that they’re placed based on their ability, not just age and grade. So if your kid excels, let’s say in language arts, they could be in first grade, but doing grade two language arts.

 

They don’t have to stay in a certain grade and kind of be restricted on that level. But if your child tests and is a little bit more advanced, they can move on. And this school does a really great job of adapting to your academic needs.

 

It just molds to the person, not the person molding to the school. My son comes to school every day and he has a healthy meal in front of him and it’s a gourmet meal. It’s an excellent, excellent food program they have.

 

A lot of the food there comes from plants we grow here in the garden. And then we get to integrate learning how to garden into science class. If you’re into having a healthier lifestyle for your kids, so you know your kid is getting something healthy, something that is going to help them thrive, not only physically, but also mentally.

 

Your child spends realistically just as much time at school as they do in your own home. And so finding a place to send your child that feels like home is really important because you want to know that the same values that you’re instilling in them every day are what’s being instilled in them in school. This is so incredible.

 

Absolutely just super impressive. The parents seem so incredibly supportive. Have the parents gone plant-based as a result of this?

 

You have a plant-based school. Presumably not everybody involved is plant-based. What has been the impact in the surrounding community as we look at things like going plant-based according to a new Oxford University study can reduce your greenhouse gas emissions footprint by 75 percent if you’re a meat-eater?

 

What has been the overall reaction in the community? That’s really a great question. We are not preaching to the choir here.

 

Our families, when they come to our school, they’re not plant-based or vegan. They’re omnivores. They come to the school because we have great education.

 

We have living classrooms. We do all these great things here. And so that’s not I think this.

 

I know this. Every parent will agree that a plant-based lunch isn’t going to hurt their kids. Their kids are going to get a good meal at lunchtime.

 

So they’re all happy about that. They’re all fine with that. And so they send their kids here.

 

And then what happens when their kids are here is their kids start learning other values. And the parents start attending our evening cooking classes. And they start attending our health classes.

 

And the families attend our community events. And then it’s a family learning together. And then family values begin to change.

 

And we have had many, many, many families and staff members come to our school and change dramatically. And so some of them, they will go fully plant-based or fully vegan. Some don’t go fully right at the beginning.

 

Some just put a foot in and they start changing their diet and they start eating more plants at home. But some of these people were eating animal products every meal five times a day and snacking on salami sticks all day long. And then they come here and they start learning about better health.

 

And they start learning about environmental impact. And they see things differently. And all of our staff takes a class.

 

It’s a plant-based nutrition class from T. Colin Campbell, the Nutrition Studies Program. And so we make sure all of our staff members come in understanding why we do what we do.

 

And I can’t tell you how many staff members, they immediately come into our school. They take that class. They talk to us.

 

And they immediately change. They change their diet and their values. I mean, right now, we have some construction workers here doing some work.

 

And they’re sitting with me at lunch every day. And these are your typical construction worker men who, you know, eat meat and unhealthy food all day, right? And we’re sitting and we’re talking about health.

 

And they’re loving the lunches. So we get to have impact on everyone that we come around, whether it’s our students, whether it’s our school community teachers, whether it’s our parents, whether it’s people working on the campus like construction workers, or whether it’s the general community through our community events. Because my thing is, education shouldn’t lie.

 

And the reality is, education doesn’t tell the truth about a lot of things. And I have, you know, that upcoming podcast, Plant the Change. And that’s really to talk about how education really needs to be honest.

 

We need to be getting out there and really educating our students. Because our students, I mean, they’re going to be taking over this world one day, right? I mean, it’s going to be them.

 

And right now, the world’s in a lot of trouble. We have so many health issues going on. And let’s remember that plant-based meals use 47% less energy.

 

They use 99% less water. They use 93% less land compared to meat-based meals. People don’t know all these things.

 

I was just talking to someone a couple days ago who came in for a job interview. And I was talking to her about cholesterol and how it comes from animal products. And she had no idea.

 

And I mean, people hear these things they don’t know. And most people do care. Most people care about their own health.

 

Everybody cares about their children’s health. And most people care about the planet. Most people care about animals.

 

So when they don’t know, they can’t make really great decisions. But as they start to learn more and more, they do make better decisions. So all you can do is give people the information, and then they’re going to do with it what they want.

 

But my goal is to give people the education, to be honest, and then to let people try things, let people taste things, let people see things, let people spend time with our pigs, you know, spend time with the chickens. It’s just, it’s our whole experience here. It’s very eye-opening and very life-changing.

 

Is there a long waiting list to get into Solid Rock? So it depends on the grade, right? So it’s like any other school.

 

Some grades are more packed than other grades. The SAVE program obviously is extremely, has extremely high interest, definitely a waiting list. And that’s a very small micro program right now.

 

The goal for that program is to move it onto this campus so we can quadruple the size. I hope to be back here with you, I’m in the near future to discuss that. But we definitely have a big waiting list for that program.

 

For the rest of the school, it depends. Some areas, absolutely, yes. Other areas have more space.

 

And we are definitely expanding some of our programs and kind of recreating space in the building to be able to serve more kids. So some people are not satisfied with anything, and they want to know, do you teach yoga and Aveda medicine? So we teach lifestyle medicine.

 

So just so you know, if you’re familiar with that, lifestyle medicine is going to be about eating a plant-based diet, getting rest, having good relationships with your peers, all of those kinds of things, taking care of yourself. And then we definitely do yoga. We do what we call calm classroom.

 

It’s another word for meditation or mindfulness. We have a lot of great things that we involve the kids in. We really want to raise healthy kids.

 

And we’ve been talking all about health, but we’re also, we want to raise kids that are healthy mentally and emotionally, because those are big areas in today’s world. And so we’re very big on mental health and emotional health as well. So just for those and myself who don’t really understand how you approach the bureaucracy.

 

So the government has this idiotic rule that says you have to serve dairy products in order to get reimbursement for your lunch program. And you were like, no, we’re not going to serve dairy. We’d like an exemption.

 

How does that work? Who do you approach? Who are you dealing with, especially now when there’s a lot of cutting and there’s a lot of agencies that are down to bare bones?

 

Well, I mean, you’re dealing with your local county agency, and then you’re working with the NSLP. So there’s a lot of hands in it. Okay.

 

National school lunch program. When we moved to this campus and had our own beautiful cafeteria and commercial kitchen, I was so excited. And when we tried again to get funding at that point, and it was a no, I was just like, just forget it.

 

I’m not going through them anymore. We’re just going to do it. We’re just going to do our own program.

 

We’re just going to make the lunches available to the kids. And that’s what we’ve been doing. But that’s been very hard.

 

So we charge for the lunches. And then the people that can afford to buy lunches buy them. But we have 50% of our school program or school kids who can’t afford to buy the lunches, which means the kids who need it the most can’t get it.

 

And let me tell you something, the lunch program, we have really struggled with the lunch program. It has been a financial just nightmare for us the whole time. It’s really, really, really been rough.

 

I mean, everyone knows about restaurants, how they’ve been since COVID. They’ve just been knocked out of the water. Everything changed with the inflation on food and with not being able to get certain ingredients.

 

All of those same things affect a school kitchen because the school kitchen is basically a restaurant within a school in a sense, right? So we’ve had all of those same really difficult things to deal with and jump over. I want to jump in for one second because one of our viewers, Paul Paris, says we have full vegan options for lunch in LAUSD.

 

Plus, I got them to offer soy milk carton for our daughter each day. Just recently, right? Because I think they, Michelle, did they not just recently pass the allergen substitute of a soy milk for…

 

Well, I don’t know how long that’s been… And you have to get… I want to explain something.

 

Here’s the difference. And I’m so glad your school has that. So I’m so happy for you.

 

But the difference is they have vegan options, okay? So that means they’re serving animal products. They’re serving dairy milk.

 

So because that school is serving those things, they can offer options. So a school, and I highly recommend schools out there that are public schools that are listening, make sure to be offering plant-based options and soy milk. Please do that.

 

But my school, our school, Solid Rock Community School, doesn’t want to offer plant-based options. We are exclusively plant-based. So that is what you have to understand the difference, okay?

 

So any school that has animal products on their menu can offer plant-based options. They can offer a soy milk option that children can take with an exemption letter from their parents. But that is not what Solid Rock is doing.

 

Solid Rock is an exclusively plant-based school that does not serve any animal products at all, which includes dairy. So I want to make sure we understand that. And so that’s why your school is able to do that, which I’m very happy that you are taking part of it.

 

But unfortunately, we’re not in that same situation. Well, it would be great to have your school all over the country. Have you thought of franchising it?

 

I know we have the Muse School here in Southern California.

 

[Speaker 2]

And they’re the second one.

 

[Speaker 1]

When I said there was one of two, Muse is the other. And they’re the other. But I mean, have you ever thought of, now that you’ve got this incredible template, having it different cities?

 

That’s possible. So just so you know, I’ve been asked that forever. And I will tell you that after we get the next part of the school done, when we actually are able to move the sanctuary over to this campus.

 

And that is a huge project. And that’s what I’m hoping I’m able to come back and talk about in the very near future. After we get that done, I think that may be the next step we’re going to take.

 

All right. So here we have a question from Jane. How can we get involved?

 

Is there a petition we can sign? Well, that’s an interesting question. We did ask Michelle, the director of Solid Rock, about the possibility of a lawsuit.

 

Because I know that there were lawsuits involving other school districts where they did win some rights for plant-based options and alternatives. That’s a complicated subject because there’s so many different school districts around the country. But I guess you’re trying first to do it in a request format and see if you can get that exemption.

 

We’re definitely beyond request. We’re beyond request. But we’re taking some very interesting approaches to this.

 

And we’ll see. I’ll be able to let you know in the next couple months how it goes. As far as like what the person asked about, is there anything they can sign?

 

There is something that parents of the school will be signing. That’s coming up. But as far as anyone outside the school, that wouldn’t be something for right now.

 

If this doesn’t go through, then it could be. We’ll kind of wait and see how that goes. Yes.

 

And the way you can help is to donate. I will be donating today. Solidrockflorida.org forward slash unshamed. No amount is too small or insignificant. What? $7, right?

 

Tell us. I mean, for people who are donating, and I hope out there you do donate. We’ve got a special link here.

 

Solidrockflorida.org forward slash unshamed. What are the breakdowns? So we have $7 feeds one child for one day.

 

$35 covers a week of food. $140 covers a month of food. And I believe, I’m doing this by memory, I think it’s $1,260 covers a year’s worth of food for that child.

 

So anybody who has an ability to help in any capacity. And then, of course, you can put in any amount you want to that differs. Anything you can do is great.

 

Because I got to tell you, like I said, 50% of our student population is low income. And these students deserve healthy, quality food. And I do want to tell you something, too, about all those amazing pictures that you saw.

 

What you’re seeing right there on the white plates, that is not a school lunch. That’s one of our dinners that we do for our parents or a special event we have for the school. So when we’re serving school lunches every day, you’re going to see things like you see on the lunch trays happening.

 

You’re going to see tacos and pasta. Very kid-friendly food. And very healthy.

 

Well, we have a mixture. We have healthy food. So whole food, plant-based.

 

We have your traditional kid-friendly food, like your tacos, your pastas. And then you’re going to have your what we call transition foods, which would be your impossible meat or your beyond, or your chicken, those kind of things. We have a huge menu that’s offered every day.

 

You wouldn’t believe it. It’s amazing because we’re really trying to get all of our kids and families to try new food. And of course, it’s plant-based chicken.

 

Everything. Yeah, that’s why I did this. Yes.

 

Yes. Everything in the school is plant-based. We don’t serve any animal products at all.

 

We never have since we’ve been on this campus ever. We have no animal products. So no eggs, no dairy, no nothing.

 

We’re 100% plant-based. I’m vegan. My husband’s vegan.

 

Many of our staff members are vegan. Okay. We have a couple of questions here just as we wrap up.

 

I’m still not clear on how the school is funded. So through tuition. So school is funded through, this is a private school.

 

So we are funded through tuition, but most tuition comes from state scholarships. So we have, I don’t know how many scholarships it is. I’m not the scholarship person, but there are so many scholarships in the state of Florida and there’s federal scholarships and VA scholarships and other things like that.

 

And we accept every scholarship out there that’s eligible in our state. And I think like 95% of our students or something like that, don’t quote me on that, but do have a scholarship. We’ve got some breaking news for you.

 

Yes. And that is Nilofar has pledged to chip in. So you’ve got at least two, Bee and Nilofar and hopefully others.

 

Now, can you do monthly, like, can you become a monthly donor? If $7 pays for a lunch, could I become a donor where I pay $7 every month? Yes, you absolutely can.

 

I’m actually trying to check on the link and see if it was made to do it on there like that. If it isn’t, you can go to our website and do it like that for sure. Cause I know generally on our regular website, you can definitely pick monthly.

 

Let me see here. So right now this one is not set up for monthly donations, but if you go to our website, you can do it like that. And your website is?

 

Solidrockcommunitieschool.org. Okay. Well, that’s easy.

 

Yes. I’ll put it right in the chat right now so that people can go there. If you, ah, org.

 

Let me do that again. I’m not going to rush. Org.

 

Yes. O-R-G. Yes.

 

I just said, I’m going to correct it. Solidrock. I know you’re, I can tell you’re a teacher.

 

You love to correct. Okay. There we go.

 

Solidrockcommunitieschool.org. Yeah. So now we have a question from Tom.

 

Can they petition the governor to lift the dairy lobby? So this is a federal, this is a federal thing. NSLP is a federal funded project.

 

It’s not something that’s local. It’s not something that’s just state. This is a federal program.

 

You’re not talking something that’s like easy to do or quick to do. It would take a lot of hands and a lot of money to change the laws. I do hope that they change.

 

And I think, I think we’re headed in that direction because like I said, there used to be where meat was required and that was five years ago. And now that’s taken off where you can substitute meat out. And let me tell you something, even, I think it was just, it was just a couple of years ago, Tempe wasn’t on the list and now Tempe is on the list.

 

So that’s changed, but the dairy hasn’t changed yet. So I do believe in the future that will be coming. We just haven’t gotten there yet.

 

Well, I just want to say, I think you guys are fantastic. I honestly don’t know how you do everything you’re doing. I do hope everybody donates either donate to solidrockflorida.org forward slash unchained. If you want to do, how much is it to pay for a kid for a year? A year, I believe it’s 1260. 1260, but $7 will get you one lunch.

 

And, and it’s also, you know, moral support for their effort. This is amazing because if yes, NSLP national program is still in bed with the dairy lobbies. Our government has essentially been co-opted by the meat and dairy industry.

 

For years. Meat and dairy industry, especially the dairy industry would collapse if it weren’t for subsidies. The government is buying a huge amount of the dairy, the cheese, the milk, and forcing it on school kids.

 

It’s not capitalism, it’s corporate socialism. And that’s me saying that, that is what’s happening. I mean, to force serving a product that 68% of the world’s population is allergic to is beyond self-destructive.

 

And that’s the situation right now. So I certainly hope that you get the exemption. And if you don’t, I think that legal action is the next step.

 

And I know there’s a lot of nonprofit legal organizations that speak up for this subject that would love to jump in and represent you. I could pretty much guarantee that. So again, please donate to solidrockflorida.org.

 

And if you want to become a monthly donor, you can do the actual school website. And we had that up a second ago. That is solidrockcommunityschool.org.

 

I want to thank both of you for being on. I think what you’re doing is absolutely incredible. I hope everybody supports you.

 

And I hope your school template, where you have a sanctuary as part of the school, where you have a seed-to-table community farm as part of the school, where you serve the parents healthy plant-based meals as part of the school, I hope all of it becomes a national school institution. I went to the Waldorf schools. I attended Rudolf Steiner, which is a private school, which is global, that has also a very special curriculum.

 

And I only was able to go for the last two years, but I’m always very grateful that the last two years of high school, I went to Rudolf Steiner School. It had a huge impact on my life. And those are schools that started with an individual school and then ended up as a global phenomenon.

 

So I wish the same for you. Thank you so much, Michelle and Chef John, for joining us. And everybody’s like more segments, please.

 

Yes, we will bring them back.

 

[Speaker 2]

Yes.

 

[Speaker 1]

When you find out, we’ll bring you back and we’ll talk about this some more. And I definitely want to talk about the animals more too, because there’s a lot going on there that I want people to hear about. Oh, wow.

 

Just absolutely amazing. And speaking of amazing, how about the amazing Unchained TV, the world’s only free nonprofit vegan streaming television network. You’re watching it right now.

 

You can download it on any phone. Just go to your app store and put in Unchained TV. You can watch it online at unchainedtv.com.

 

And you can also have it on your TV behind you. There it is on my Samsung or any LG TV or any TV. If you have a streaming device like an Amazon Fire Stick, a Roku device or an Apple TV device, more than 2000 videos, all 100 percent free and plant based.

 

So it’s a vegan network. OK, that’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I love Unchained TV.

 

[Speaker 2]

Unchained. Unchained TV. Your life will change.

 

It’s just that easy.

 

[Speaker 1]

Unchained TV has all sorts of content for everybody. Unchained TV changed my life. Unchained TV is crushing it.

 

I love Unchained TV. Unchained TV is my go to. Unchained TV.

 

Who knew? Unchained, baby!