Today is the Franklin School Picnic, a twice-annual affair in which parents and their children gather on the ball field for dinner. Kids run off and play games, parents schmooze and enjoy the warmth. In all it’s a good experience.
This is my 8th year of the tradition. More often than not parents show up carrying pizza boxes because, let’s face it, we have enough going on than to have to make a dinner AND get to the field on time. Some bring really great homemade food. But alas, I’m part of the lazy bunch that opt for the cardboard box from heaven.
So not all that long ago the PTO started selling pizza to parents. More accurately, they picked up the pizza for us, we paid them, they made a bit of cash and everyone was happy. I was going to get the pizza anyway, this just saved me the aggravation of having to order it and pick it up.
But that idea is now apparently dead. From what I understand the board of health was called and put an end to the illicit pizza sales. According to what I’m hearing, the board of health required hand washing stations and a method for keeping the pizza at given temperature. The school would also need periodic inspections (though, not sure how you inspect a folding table on a field). Basically, things that killed any chance at a profit.
So the end result is that the PTO lost a fund-raising opportunity and I need to pick up a pizza for tonight.
We just went to the same style kind of annual event last night at Countryside and they were serving pizza and hot dogs. I really hope they don’t put the kibosh on that in the future. As you say, with an event starting at 5 PM on a week night it sure makes it easier if you can grab a few slices when you get there.
Last night was a perfect night for it too. My third grade daughter was thrilled that she was able to be “dunkee” in the Dunk Tank – an honor usually reserved for 5th graders.
Chuck – Rough night, but I think you’ll make it. 😉
Don’t speak too loudly Jerry, the health department may come by and shut you down.
@Chuck – Did I say Countryside? My mistake, I meant my brother’s house.
Honestly confused by this after, I admit, only a quick read.
My children attended Franklin and this was always a fun event. My experience has been that the PTO is made up of human beings like me. They’re calling themselves a PTO,but really, in the end, they’re my fellow neighbors.
All this time, this has been nothing more than asking my neighbor to pick up the pizza on their way and I pay them back. Beyond the fact that when they get together and call themselves a PTO, what in heaven’s name is the difference? They’re not a food service corporation.
If I ask my sister-in-law to get me a chicken sandwich from the BK Lounge, is that now a problem?
Honestly don’t get it.
@Mark, I think the issue here was that they formalized the process. So while, for me, the impact was “they picked up the pizza,” there was a certain formality in ordering and handing them out, money exchanging hands, etc. My guess is that it’s not a clear line. I’m also told that it was shut down after someone complained to the city about it. I’m not sure the nature of the complaint or if it was more of a “this doesn’t seem right” kind of thing.
There’s a secondary discussion going around about the impact of these rules on bake sales. From what I understand, schools are allowed to sell some goods like cakes and cookies that are prepared in a person’s home (provided they are individually wrapped), but not creamy goods like cheesecake or puddings.
I’ll admit that I like regulations, especially when they relate to health and safety. The noise ordinance? love it-was able to call the police to take control of the weekly teenage drinking parties in my ‘hood. Smoking ordinances? Completely changed the quality of life in my workplace. Anything that relates to providing prepared food to children at a community event? Seems responsible to me. These small inconvenience that these regulations/ordinances make Newton a healthy, safe community. I like that.
Jane – I can’t see how stopping gloved parents from handing out slices of pizza on paper plates, just as that do the down the street at the pizza shop, makes anyone healthier or safer. It certainly would crimp PTO fundraising though and make the event quite a bit more inconvenient for everyone.
Jerry- I wouldn’t personalize this particular event. The city has to set policy about health and safety issues related to food is served at events at community events. The standards should have some sense of uniformity, no matter who hosts the event. Is it worth the city’s time, effort, funds to supervise every event where food is served?
On another note, the schools have tightened up on rules relating to food in recent years and the regulations make sense to me for a variety of reasons.
Jane – I didn’t realize I was personalizing anything. My point was that people doing the same operation (handing out pizza slice on paper plates while wearing gloves) whether its done by employees of the pizza shop or parents at the field down the street is no more healthy/unhealthy or dangerous/safe.
>>> The city has to set policy about health and safety issues related to food
>>> is served at events at community events.
Absolutely, no disagreement there, but from Chuck’s report it seems that the policy is “you can’t” rather than how to do it safely
>>> Is it worth the city’s time, effort, funds to supervise every event where food is served?
Absolutely not, no more than they supervise every slice being handed out at the pizza shop. Just issue and communicate the few basic common sense public health rules (e.g. don’t touch the food) and let people get on with it.
Jerry – the city does inspections of restaurants, eateries, bars, and liquor stores. How can we expect it to inspect events?
I didn’t mean that an individual was personalizing the situation, but that the experience at one school should not be singled out. The city needs to establish standards for how food is handled and distributed at all community events.
Jerry, to be clear, the city set out guidelines on “how to do it safely,” but those guidelines were too high a bar for a small get together like the school picnic. The investment in materials and effort would kill any slim profit the PTO could make, so it killed the project.
I guess the question becomes: where are the lines necessary?
As in other areas of life, the “how to do it safely” bar is much higher when children are involved. The schools have strict guideline about food – students cannot eat anything in the classroom other than what his/her parents sent in the lunchbox. There”s no sharing of food – no more trading my apple for your oreos! – and no food for birthdays or holiday parties. This policy was put into place about 5 years ago to protect students with allergies and other health issues.
The reality if that once you combine food and kids, the bar is high and it really does protect kids. My first comment was fresh, but in clearer terms I think it’s best to pick your battles.
I feel I should weigh in with a bit of explanation. The Health Department knows that events such as these go on at many of our schools. We also know (and can’t police) that PTO’s often don’t ask whether or not they need a permit. The line for when you do or don’t need a permit is not as clear as we would like and the State knows this. In general, when money changes hands and especially when an event is an overt fundraiser, a permit is needed. When we issue a permit, we provide guidelines for safe handling of food including how long it is safe to leave an item out at room temperature and no handling with bare hands etc.
So if the Franklin PTO contacted the Health Department, they would have been told they needed a permit. The process of applying and getting such a permit is not onerous, but it does require a fee of $50 (probably easily absorbed by charging a slightly higher price for those ordering the pizza as a convenience to themselves). As a Health Department, we do feel strongly that food safety is important and we do “police” food establishments around the city through our unannounced inspections at regular intervals. There are 400 of these so this is quite a bit of work.
For other events, we do urge people to get food permits, which are needed for events outside of the home open to the public or where sales of food occur.
Thank you Dori,
I agree that the permitting process isn’t onerous, but often these fundraisers have a very small profit margin. Each one may raise $100 or $200 in total. So that $50 permit is as much as half of the profit. Add in any other expenses incurred to fix compliance issues and the entire project is no longer worth the time and effort.
If compliance is the issue, perhaps the city can work with the schools to issue a blanket permit for such activities with clear guidelines for compliance at no charge?
Hi Dori,
Thank you for weighing in here. Actually, the health department contacted me and my fellow PTO co-president after a commuity member expressed concern about pizza sales. It was made very clear that we should discontinue all pizza sales. The person I spoke to explained that we were welcome to apply for a permit and pay the fee, but that there were other restrictions such as food temperature, hand washing stations, and priodic inspections that basically would prohibit us from being able to sell pizza from a folding table on the field. I was told that we should just have bake sales. IMHO, bake sales are an inordinate amount of work for little profit and, given that kindergarteners are likely helping to bake those brownies, I question the that the safety of home baked goods is any better than the safety of pizza coming out of a licensed restaurant.
If the PTO were to invite an ice cream truck to the event, would the ice cream vendor need a $50 permit? If not, does he have some kind of permit that has a time range, like purchase a permit for $500 all year or something? If so, could the PTOs of the world just purchase a pizza permit for any event all year for say, $150?
@Galen: I’d imagine that an ice cream truck operator would have the appropriate permit already and would follow safe food handling protocols or else risk losing his or her permit.
Could a person, maybe a member of the PTO, maybe not, take orders for pizza – go pick them up and bring them to the field? Then the people receiving the pizza could pay the person, and maybe tip them. And if the delivery person chooses to donate that money to the PTO, well that would be darn nice of them!
Greg,
That is my point. He has the permit already. The problem seems to be that the $50 is a one-time fee each time. Why not allow PTOs to get a permit that can last awhile. Let them get a permit per year or something. Let the get a permit and to get that permit they promise to use gloves and keep the cover on the pizza box. (Sorry, temperature rule just makes me want to laugh uncontrollably)
The whole safe-handling thing? That’s just too much over the top with sillyness for me. Its pizza for Chr…. sake! What worrywort of a parent actually went to the healthboard about that? Jeez. We have pizzas after a big practice week. We have pizzas after a big tournament. We have pizzas at birthday parties. And you know what? We have them at a picnic. Now, we have to worry about keeping it a particular temperature? Somebody handing out slices has to have gloves on? Its pizza!!! I don’t care if money is involved. I don’t care if there are things the healthboard must abide by. Just listen to the description on its own. The PTO couldn’t serve pizza outside at a picnic that was lasting 2 hours because it wasn’t kept at a uniform temperature. How flipp’n over-the-top protective does that sound??? At some point I won’t be able to send my kid to school with a sandwich unless I have a permit to put my hands into a deli bag and pull out roast beef.
I don’t have time right now to find a USDA site that addresses this but I found this here:
This is not something new. As a Countryside PTO co-president 2003-2005, I know the PTO had to follow Health Department food guideline. Early in the school year a food handling training session was held at the Ed. Center. PTO’s citywide would send a volunteer(s) to attend to learn proper food handling procedures; gloves, hand washing, money/food handling, keeping food heated, etc. That volunteer would then need to be present when food was sold at the Spring Fair, Welcome Back Picnic, etc to see all food guidelines were followed. At Countryside we had access to the small school kitchen to prep food such as hot dogs, salads and keep the pizza in the school’s food warmers. Before an event such as the Spring Fair someone from the Health Dept. would come to the school to approve we met all the guide lines and check-in with the trained volunteer. Yes, at one time we used to sell pizza from boxes at tables but in 2003 it was made very clear to PTOs that health guidelines had to be followed when handling food on school grounds.
Ooohh, somebody is writing big bad scary stuff. You can find that kind of article for alot of things, like perfectly good pizza. Just read the following sentence to yourself, “A PTO board was not allowed to serve pizza at a picnic because the healthboard said it was dangerous”.
I certainly cannot fault the Health Department for enforcing public health regulations on city property. I know it seems silly to some, but having gotten food poisoning myself once, I have no desire to ever go through that ever again. Whenever I volunteer as BBQ Chef for the annual library fundraiser, which is held at a private home, we have to wash our hands and use hand sanitizer and plastic gloves, check the temperature of the cooked meat, and not leave cooked meat at room temperature for an extended period.
And Karen S. is absolutely correct that this is nothing new. When my kids were at Horace Mann (ten years ago) the PTO had to abide by the same rules. So, respectfully, I am not sure what the big deal is. The PTO is using school grounds for a fundraiser and serving cooked food that could result in someone getting sick if not handled properly. Factor that in to the cost of the price of a slice to recoup your money kwitcherbellyaching (literally).
The lack of transparency is a problem. There really should be a list of what types of events and food require a food permit. Then someone in city government should read the list critically and think about the ramifications. I presume the city won’t require me to have a permit for a family pot luck dinner at my house. How about if I invite my neighbors? My kids’ classmates? Now what if I have too many guests and move it to the school? How about if some guests don’t have time to cook and just reimburse me for some of the food costs? What triggers the permit requirement? Then that someone should think about what we lose in terms of community cohesiveness and parent involvement when we can’t have school pot lucks. And if we can have school pot lucks, what’s the big deal about selling pizza?
As Chuck said, the $50 fee is a big deal too. These events only make a few hundred $. We hold school bake sales because the city won’t fully fund school activities, and then the city takes a 25% cut of the gross! The real city share is even bigger when you realize that the parents donated the food, so the % of the actual profit is probably closer to 50%. I run the Midwinter Coffeehouse, a much bigger event, and the city share of that (in permit fees) is also between 20% and 50%. All of these events are run by parents who donate time and material; the city puts minimum effort into them, and even that little bit of effort is triggered by the city’s own permitting process. Not to mention that parents are the ones who buy most of the “product”. The bottom line is, the city won’t fund the schools fully, parents put effort into raising funds from the rest of the parent community, and we pay the city for the privilege of raising the funds.
As for food safety, I can see why the city might want to supervise hot dogs and hamburgers, and maybe quiche. Personally, however, I don’t see it as being any different from eating at my neighbors’ houses, and I would freely choose to do that. Plain cheese pizza, in particular, strikes me as being a very low risk food – highly processed dough, sauce, and cheese baked in a 500 degree oven? Ironically, the risk goes way up if you add fresh vegetables to it!
In the big picture view, this discussion reflects a fundamental problem with our approach to risk management. We overprotect for low incidence “scary” risks that we create even worse long term chronic risks. We’re afraid of food tampering that we allow processed foods (chips, candy, cookies) at events (or Halloween!) but are afraid of home prepared real food or raw produce. We’re scared to let our kids play outside unsupervised, so they spend time inside playing video games. So they have overly protected childhoods, and heart disease in their 50’s. How is this good for society again?
Is it that this is a fundraiser, or that it’s a fundraiser on city property? Does the permit requirement apply to things like political fundraisers, which usually serve food, in private homes?
Maybe the PTO Council needs to revisit food guidelines for the schools’ PTO events. Have Dori speak to all the PTO co-presidents about the required food permit and rules. I am assuming the PTO Council still meets regularly during the school year. From the City website regarding food permit:
TEMPORARY FOOD SERVICE PERMITS FAIRS, CARNIVALS, FUND RAISERS, SPECIAL EVENTS, ETC.
Telephone 617-796-1420
Fax 617-552-7063
updated 2/10
Setti D. Warren Mayor
Permits are granted for a period of 1 to 14 days
Applicants must complete the required application
Applicant must READ and SIGN the guideline fact sheet
Applicant must pay a fee of $ 50.00 in cash or check made payable to the City of Newton
Applicant must speak with a food inspector regarding the types of food to be served and all specific requirements for food handling.
Note: Any organization or event open to the general public is required to apply for this permit, including non-profit organizations
PTO Council coordinates with the city each year to help ensure that all PTOs have the opportunity to send a representative to food handling training. At the training they receive guidelines from the Health Department re food handling and permits. All PTO chairs should keep this information on file. I believe the guidelines are posted on the PTO Council website (which is down at the moment). If not, we’ll get them up pronto. Information is disseminated to those who need it and available to those who seek it out. From the Newton Food Service Policy:
-Food permits will be required for all events that are open to the public, except bake sales that serve non-potentially hazardous baked goods only e.g. cookies, brownies, cakes.
-If the event is open to the school community only, no permit is required; however all proper food handling requirements must be followed.
Marcia, thanks for the post. Sounds like nothing really has changed in the past 10 years as far as PTO guidelines for events/fund raiser with food. Maybe reminders need to be e-mailed to PTOs throughout the school year about this issue especially spring when a lot of school picnics are scheduled.