STUDENTS ASK PELOSI FOR BETTER SCHOOL FOOD
Posted on | March 9, 2010 | No Comments
March 9, 2010
SF School Food Coalition Press Release
Contact: Lena Brook, Founder, SF School Food Coalition
415-601-0504 | sfschoolfood@gmail.com
STUDENTS ASK PELOSI FOR BETTER SCHOOL FOOD
SAN FRANSICO – More than 2,000 paper plates created by SFUSD students from over 25 elementary schools and adorned with requests to improve public school food were presented today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).
Students at Jose Ortega Elementary School in the city’s Ingleside district gave the plates to the Speaker’s staff at the school during an assembly about health and nutrition.
The plates are part of campaign to increase federal funding and improve nutrition standards for public school meal programs. Known as the “Paper Plates for Pelosi” campaign, the drive was launched last fall by the San Francisco School Food Coalition (SFSFC), a group of volunteers working to improve the food in the city’s public school system. The SF School Food Coalition (sfschoolfood.org) is a coalition of parents and advocates committed to creating a school food program that connects student health, academic achievement and positive behavior to eating fresh, high quality and good tasting food from sustainable resources.
“The fiscal and structural limitations of our National School Lunch Program has left food service directors with little choice but to serve low-cost, processed food.” Lena Brook, founder of the SFSFC and parent of a 1st grader at Grattan Elementary School said. “We are asking for Speaker Pelosi’s leadership in ensuring that the upcoming reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act results in at least $1 in additional funding per child as well as revised nutrition standards based on recent recommendations presented by the Institute of Medicine.”
More than 25 schools within the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) participated in the campaign. Students decorated the plates with original art and messages, in three languages, about their desire for better tasting food. Some included artwork of fresh fruit and vegetable while others wrote poems about what kinds of food they’d like to have at lunch. Photos of the top 15 entries are available on the SF School Food Coalition’s website.
Currently, the Federal Government reimburses the district up to $2.70 per meal for those who qualify for free or reduced lunch—roughly more than half of all students in the SFUSD qualify. Unfortunately, only $1.75 of that money is actually spent on food. The remainder is used to fund operational expenses.
The funding for school meals programs is allocated through the Child Nutrition Act, which was originally authorized in 1966. The bill is up for reauthorization this spring.
“In addition to increasing resources for school meals, the 2010 Reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Act should also improve access to school meals for more children by increasing reimbursement rates and expanding eligibility for high-cost areas like San Francisco,” Brook said. “Congress has a golden opportunity before them to support health prevention by bringing healthier food to the children who need it most. San Francisco students are counting on their leadership.”
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