Senior Keira Walker, a Student Equity Ambassador Leader (SEAL), a position that works to provide equity for students, reintroduced the salad bar to the lunch line after it was discontinued during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Being a SEAL means learning more about what happens across Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). It entails distinguishing areas of improvement within FCPS and finding methods that
have the potential to succeed in and beyond high school,” said Walker.

Walker’s original intention for joining SEALs was to provide equity for all students. She believes that students should have a say in how things are run at WS and that everyone’s high school experience should be enjoyable.
The incentive behind bringing back the salad bar was because it offers nutritious and vegetarian options. She also wanted to give students an option to pick and choose a meal themselves.
It took Walker two years of asking FCPS to reimplement the salad bar. Last year, other schools were adding salad bars and setting up the logistics for them, and finally, this year, WS added a salad bar.

“It’s a good way for people to eat healthier and have a sort of ‘do-it-yourself meal.’ It was an opportunity to encourage people to eat more nutritiously,” said Walker.
The salad bar hasn’t picked up a lot of popularity yet. Walker attributes this to the fact that people haven’t discovered it and getting people to notice it would help more students eat from it.
“I would say it’s not quite as used as it could be, it definitely hasn’t taken off as much compared to before COVID, but I also think that many people don’t know about it yet ,” Said Walker.

Walker explained one flaw of the salad bar is that it is somewhat difficult to assemble a salad and many ingredients are tough to grab. She adds that the quality of the bar will improve as time goes on. There are also plans to add extra food options and provide more choices to eat from.
“The salad bar is a great opportunity to try new things and to make sure you’re eating healthy while also keeping what you would want in it or adding a couple new ingredients,” said Walker.
Walker hopes to see the salad bar foster more interest in future years. She wishes that new ingredients would be added that will allow more students to eat from the bar.