Minneapolis Public Schools Culinary & Wellness Services

08/27/2026

We asked for help and, wow, did our amazing bike community respond! Earlier this August, volunteers spent more than one hundred hours tuning and fixing every bicycle in our traveling fleets, so that they will be in top shape for students when they return to school. Biking thrives in Minneapolis Public Schools because of the generous and caring bike community here.

Thank you to the super stars from:

Quality Bicycle Products
Free Bikes 4 Kidz MN
Behind Bars Bicycle Shop
Freewheel Bike
Dero
Bicycle Alliance of Minnesota BikeMn
City of Minneapolis Government Public Works
Twin Cities Bicycle Club
Angry Catfish Bicycle Shop and Coffee Bar
Twin Cities Bike Polo
Minneapolis Public Schools staff, students and caregivers
Our community

08/24/2026

Families, please help your students get ready for the school year by learning their PIN (same as student ID). Students enter their PIN number in the meal line.

Everything you need to know about school breakfast and lunch—including an online version of this PIN practice—is available at bit.ly/EatingAtSchool.

08/21/2026

Our farm partners have been working hard all spring and summer to grow the best produce for MPS students. Our back-to-school fall menus include a lot of local produce including tomatoes, mini "lunchbox" peppers, zucchini, green beans, apples, sweet corn, bell peppers, kale and collard greens, local lettuce, and watermelon! Make sure to check out the salad bar and hot vegetable sides at lunch to find great Farm to School produce when you come back to school!

bit.ly/EatingAtSchool

08/19/2026

Come grab a meal on the last week of the MPS True Food Bus! Minneapolis Public Schools offers free summer meals and snacks to youth - 18 and under. Kids do not need to be enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools to participate. The True Food Bus runs through August 21, and community sites run through August 28.

Learn more at bit.ly/SummerMealsMPS.

08/14/2026

Last week, the CWS team traveled to North High School to present at an event called "Let 'em Cook!" Here, students from the Summer STEAM Blast camp learned about school gardening, nutrition, and got to make their very own CWS Rainbow Spring Rolls! This energizing, fun-filled event encouraged students to try vegetables in a new, delicious way. Thanks to Mr. B and all volunteers for hosting and facilitating this event!

Want to bring Rainbow Spring Rolls to your classroom? Request this fresh and colorful cooking kit! Details: bit.ly/MPSFoodEducation

North High School

08/12/2026

"The two highlights of my internship at Minneapolis Public Schools Culinary & Wellness Services were creating my vegetable garden and getting to teach MPS students about gardening, cooking, and nutrition. Students bring so much curiosity and energy, and I hope they’ll have the chance to experience the joy of starting a garden themselves someday.

Throughout this experience, I've developed school gardening curriculum which includes six lesson plans tailored to grade levels K-5. The topics of these lesson plans range from plant basics to farm-to-school to nutrition and culture, all connecting back to school gardening. Each lesson plan includes a guided lecture, activities, and teacher's guides with associated academic standards."

Thank you, Maddy, for interning with us this summer! We are so grateful for your amazing teamwork, enthusiasm for garden experiments, and dedication to developing fun activities for MPS students to learn about our food system!

Subscribe to The Whole Carrot Newsletter for access to Maddy's school garden curriculum! bit.ly/WholeCarrotNewsletter_Signup

08/11/2026

We are proud to partner with Maggie, Callin, Pam, and Jane to source a variety of Farm to School produce to use in our nutrition program at MPS!

Four sisters who grew up in a farm family in Kenya now farm 30 acres in Medina where they grow produce that feeds local residents and students in two school districts. But cuts in local food aid may force them to scale back.

By Binta Kanteh

https://sahanjournal.com/business-work/kenyan-sisters-farm-medina-kingfield-market/

08/07/2026

Last school year students collectively traveled more than 75,000 miles on Minneapolis streets and trails. We supported 31 schools & 4,000 students with school-owned fleets and traveling bike fleets.

Learn about Safe Routes to School in MPS: mpschools.org/safe-routes

Help fix bikes in the traveling fleets: bit.ly/mpsbike

08/05/2026

Eat with us! Minneapolis Public Schools offers free summer meals and snacks to youth - 18 and under. Kids do not need to be enrolled in Minneapolis Public Schools to participate. The True Food Bus runs through August 21, and community sites run through August 28.

Learn more at https://bit.ly/SummerMealsMPS.

See you there!

07/30/2026

Thank you to the City of Minneapolis for sharing the once-in-a-lifetime Nicollet bridge project with Minneapolis Community Education Justice Page Bike Explorers group! Students saw the hundred-year-old arches in various stages of deconstruction and reconstruction. They admired a crane that can lift 200,000 pounds and learned about the protections for the Minnehaha Creek. They asked all sorts of questions -- why not completely demolish and rebuild? where does the debris go? why doesn’t the bridge fall down during the process? does the team work at night? how will the new bridge compare to the old one?

Thank you, City of Minneapolis Transportation Engineering & Design team – it is inspiring that even after many decades in the field –you still find your work so exciting that you can’t possibly keep it just for yourselves. Thank you for sharing your work and your passion – and for planting seeds in the next generation.