Mark Rucci chosen as a 2014 Plastino Scholar

2014 May 20

Mark Rucci has been awarded a grant from the Plastino Scholars Program to carry out a self-designed, off-campus research project.

Rucci created the School Nurtitional Awareness Consortium for his Plastino Scholarship -- a group of faculty, staff, students and parents that is strategizing policy initiaitves to offer public school students free breakfast and lunch and healthier meal options in school. Rucci will spend the month of June conducting research in five different school districts throughout the country that are part of a program that funds two free meals for students. Rucci will visit Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio and Massachusetts to collect data, talk to administrators and interview families. He will use his research to create a similar program with the superintendent of the Wildwood school district, where more than 46 percent of students are living in poverty.

David Plastino, a 1978 graduate of UD's College of Arts and Sciences, established the Plastino Scholars Program in 2007 to give students a chance to explore their passions.