So, what is the Child Nutrition Act? It's the very funding and guidelines that Congress sets every four years which dictates what kids eat at their school lunch tables everyday. It can make the difference between apples and fruit roll ups. It can mean real food or something close to it. And for some kids it can be the one meal that they get a day to make up for the other food they don't get.
And it matters to a lot of kids.
According to Slow Food USA, which is spearheading the Time for Lunch lettering writing campaign...
The National School Lunch Program was created in 1946 "to safeguard the health and wellbeing of the Nation’s children." It is supposed to ensure that no child goes without a healthy meal every day. Without healthy food, kids have a harder time performing well in school, staying fit and growing up to be healthy, productive adults.
But as some of you know, with the emergence of big AG and the massive food subsidies, the quality of school lunches in the last thirty years have declined tremendously. Not only that, the prevalence of soda machines, snack machines and less real food made on campus to save money has meant less real food on the plates of more than 30 million kids every day at lunch time.
As Daily Kos and the rest of the Country is consumed by the Health Care debate we know that part of the issue has a lot to do with what we eat and the impact those choices have on our weight and our health. This is no coincidence, this things start young. Some Slow Food Facts...
It’s time to give kids the school lunch they deserve. Here’s why:
• The National School Lunch Program feeds more than 31 million children every school day. 18 million of those children qualify for free or reduced-price lunch.
• One child in every four is overweight or obese, and one in three will develop diabetes in his or her lifetime. For African-American and Hispanic children, that number rises to one in two.
• Obesity and diabetes are so destructive that today’s kids are the first in over two centuries to have shorter life expectancies than their parents.
• Obesity costs our nation $147 billion each year, and diabetes costs our nation $116 each year. One year of diabetes treatments costs $11, 774.
• School districts are reimbursed $2.68 for every meal served to a child who qualifies for free lunch. After paying for overhead costs, schools are left with only $1.00 to purchase food. As a result, most can only afford to serve the highly processed foods that hurt children’s health and keep them from performing well in school. We’re calling for Congress to give kids the school lunch they deserve.
So what can you do? You can do what I've done! I'm currently doing outreach to my local Slow Food Chapter and local City officials (I just happen to know some). And now that I armed a local City Council person with Slow Food materials she's spreading the word!
I also have contacted my daughter's PTA at her elementary school. I've emailed two local CSA's to see if we can have letter writing days at their farms. I am going to call some local Farmer's market to see if I can get free space for letter writing. I'm even contacting my local candidates to see if they want to host a letter writing event to promote their candidacy and a very important issue. It's a win/win no matter how you look at it. And it's a non-partisan issue, it's about our kids.
Other ideas? Here are just a few others I might try...
After School Programs and Day Care Centers
Local Gyms
Farmer's Markets
Food Banks
Tabling at your Local Health Food Store
Church Groups
Community Gardens
Libraries
City Council Meetings
PTA Meetings
Moms and Dads gourps
Playgrounds
Share some of your ideas!
Materials? Slow Food has provided amazing resources that I've forwarded to every single person I've done outreach with and I've only gotten positive feedback. It's easy.
Policy Platform (PDF)
Talking Points
School Lunch Fact Sheet (PDF)
Letter-Writing Handout (PDF)
Send Congress a Drawing (PDF)
And here are some sample letters that Slow Food provided. This is such an important issue and hope just one of you might take this up in your local community.
Lets give kids the lunch they deserve!
Here are Slow Food's three main goals...
We’re calling for Congress to give kids the school lunch they deserve. When our elected officials reauthorize child nutrition programs this spring, they must:
- Invest in health. Find the funding to give school lunch programs $1 more per child per day.
- Protect kids from the junk food sold in school vending machines and as "a la carte" cafeteria items. Approve the Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act of 2009.
- Link schools to local farms, and teach healthy eating. Guarantee $50 million of funding for Farm to School programs.
I absolutely love the Farm to School programs, it not only supports local agriculture, it gets kids involved in where their food comes from and eating fresh fruits and vegetables!
Farm to School brings healthy food from local farms to school children nationwide. The program teaches students about the path from farm to fork, and instills healthy eating habits that can last a lifetime. At the same time, use of local produce in school meals and educational activities provides a new direct market for farmers in the area and mitigates environmental impacts of transporting food long distances.
Note - This is Ellinorianne and I'm writing on behalf of Eat Cleaner. I am currently unpaid and doing community outreach on behalf of Eat Cleaner and on my own because this has become my passion. I hope that as soon as Eat Cleaner is able to hire me I will be writing more and doing more on behalf of anything food and environment related.