CALAIS – Potato chips and Coke may taste yummy, but they’re not good for growing children.

So chips are out and grapes are in, at least at the Calais Elementary School.

Kids and families are being encouraged to eat healthier, and the staff at the Calais Elementary School is doing its part to make that happen.

The statistics are troubling.

“Washington County has the highest obesity-overweight rate in the state at 59 percent,” Heather Henry, Union 106 healthy school coordinator said Tuesday. “My job is to teach kids and families to eat healthier.”

Eating healthier began at the school four years ago, but it happened only once a week. “All parents sent in a healthy snack on Monday. We decided to expand the program,” Henry said.

The school recently received a $1,000 grant from the federal No Child Left Behind Program and that allowed it to grow into five days a week.

But the program needed a leader. Third-grade teacher Brenda Batson picked up the carrots, figuratively speaking, and started to run with them. She organized teachers and staff to make every day a healthy snack day.

As the program grew, the staff needed even more help.

School nurse Sue Clark came up with a solution. She called a few parents and soon they were coming in every day.

Each morning, volunteers arrive at the school and set up in the teacher’s room. Some cut apples, others slice carrots. On Tuesday Henry, armed with a blender, was making fruit smoothies.

“It grew so fast we couldn’t do it just once a week,” Henry said. “The kindergartners and first-graders were depending on it.”

The school even has its own garden where some of the vegetables are grown.

Last year, fifth-grade pupil Conor McCadden, 10, said he helped plant potatoes, tomatoes and sunflowers. “It was fun,” he said.

And the kids love the snacks.

“It is nutritious and it’s good food,” fifth-grade pupil Kaitlyn Cundiff, 10, said while buying a smoothie.

Now the volunteers hope that with the end of summer and the end of gardens, anyone with extra vegetables would donate them to the school. Those who have vegetables can call the school at 454-2000.