Tag Archives: Time for Lunch

You’re invited to Slow Food RI’s Time for Lunch Eat-in, Monday, September 7

About a month and a half ago, we announced Slow Food USA’s new campaign to get healthy food into schools, Time for Lunch.

Time for Lunch aims to change the Child Nutrition Act by letting our legislators know that healthy food in schools is important to us all. The Child Nutrition Act governs the National School Lunch Program, which sets the standard for the food that more than 30 million children eat every school day. In the last few decades, as school budgets have been cut, our nation’s schools have struggled to serve children the healthy food they need.

Primary goals of Time for Lunch are to increase the amount allotted for each school lunch by a dollar – from $2.57 to $3.57, to guarantee 50 million dollars in funding for Farm-to-School programs, and to enact high standards for all food sold in schools, including vending machines and fast food outposts.

To read more about the Child Nutrition Act and the National School Lunch program, please visit Slow Food USA’s Time for Lunch website.

Slow Food Rhode Island will be kicking off our Time for Lunch campaign efforts – which will continue throughout the fall – with an Eat-in – a pot-luck get-together held on the beautiful grounds of the Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center on Labor Day. As of today, there are 232 Eat-ins planned in 49 states, all taking place on Labor Day.

The Slow Food RI Eat-in will start at 2pm, and in addition to good food, great company, and supporting an important cause, there will also be live music. State legislators and school administrators have been invited to attend as well.

If you are planning to attend the Eat-in, please email slowfoodri@gmail.com to let us know you’ll be joining us, and to let us know what dish you’re planning to bring. There is no admission for the Eat-in, though donations in any amount are appreciated to offset the facility fees.

If you cannot attend the Slow Food RI Eat-in, please be sure to sign the petition, contact your legislators to let them know that healthy food in schools is important to you, and spread the word to your friends. If you’d like to organize your own Eat-in, information on coordinating Eat-ins is available here.

We look forward to seeing you at the Eat-in!

Details:
Slow Food RI Time for Lunch Eat-in
Monday, September 7, 2009
2pm
Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center
3852 Main Road
Tiverton Four Corners, RI
For directions, click here

Time for Lunch Eat-in, Monday, September 7

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By now, you have probably heard about Slow Food USA’s newly-launched initiative for real food in our nation’s schools, Time for Lunch.

Time for Lunch is national campaign to tell Congress to provide America’s children with real food at school. One of the major milestones for the campaign will be orchestrating more than 100 Eat-Ins in communities across the country on Labor Day, September 7, 2009.

Slow Food Rhode Island will be hosting an Eat-in at the Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center on Labor Day, and we’ll be posting up more information on the event throughout the summer.

The Eat-Ins – potluck gatherings – will draw attention to the need for real, healthy food for the more than 30 million children who participate in the National School Lunch Program. The school lunch program is part of the Child Nutrition Act that Congress will reauthorize later this year.

The need for real school food has never been greater. Today, one in four children is overweight or obese, and one in three will develop diabetes in his or her lifetime. In the face of this crisis, our schools are financially struggling to feed children anything but the overly processed fast food that endangers their health. For many children, school lunch is their only guaranteed meal of the day. Right now, those children are forced to choose between going hungry and being unhealthy.

The Child Nutrition Act is a federal law that comes up for reauthorization in Congress every four to five years. It governs the National School Lunch Program, which sets the standard for the food that more than 30 million children eat every school day. In the last few decades, as school budgets have been cut, our nation’s schools have struggled to serve children the real food they need.

The deadline for reauthorizing the current Child Nutrition Act is September 2009. Unless we speak up this summer, “business as usual” on Capitol Hill will let Congress pass a Child Nutrition Act that continues to fail our children.

If you cannot attend the Slow Food RI Eat-in, please be sure to sign the petition, contact your legislators to let them know healthy school lunches are important to you, and spread the word to your friends. If you’d like to organize your own Eat-in, information on coordinating Eat-ins is available here.

Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you at the Eat-in at Tiverton Four Corners Arts Center on Monday, September 7, 2009.

The Renegade Lunch Lady

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For those of you looking for some additional information on school lunches, Ann Cooper, “the renegade lunch lady” of Berkeley, California, speaks on school lunches in this video.

And check out pictures of actual school lunches here.

Please be sure to spread the word about Slow Food’s Time for Lunch campaign to your friends, sign the petition if you haven’t already, and contact your legislators to let them know why real food in schools is important to you.

It’s Time for Lunch: Slow Food USA Pushes to Get Real Food into Schools

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We are thrilled to announce that the Slow Food USA Time for Lunch Campaign is planning more than 100 Community Eat-Ins for National Day of Action on Labor Day, Monday, September 7, 2009.

Today, Slow Food USA launched Time for Lunch, a national campaign to tell Congress to provide America’s children with real food at school. One of the major milestones for the campaign will be orchestrating more than 100 Eat-Ins in communities across the country on Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. The Eat-Ins will draw attention to the need for real, healthy food for the more than 30 million children who participate in the National School Lunch Program. The program is part of the Child Nutrition Act that Congress will reauthorize later this year.

“The way we feed our kids is a reflection of our values. We cannot, in good conscience, continue to make our kids sick by feeding them cheap byproducts of an industrial food system,” stated Josh Viertel, president, Slow Food USA. “It is time to give kids real food: food that tastes good, is good for them, is good for the people who grow and prepare it, and is good for the planet.”

With nearly 32 percent of children ages 2 to 19 considered obese or overweight, and one-in-three born since 2000 in jeopardy of developing diabetes in his/her life time, providing schools with real food is a national priority.

The Time for Lunch campaign is asking people everywhere to contact their legislators and tell them to invest in the health of our children by allocating $1 more per day per child for lunch. The USDA currently reimburses schools $2.57 for each meal served to a student who qualified for free lunch – most of this covers labor, equipment and overhead costs – but less than $1 goes toward actual ingredients.

The campaign also seeks to protect against foods that put children at risk by establishing strong standards for all food sold at school, including food from vending machines and school fast food. Right now, children can buy overly processed “fast” foods from vending machines and on-campus stores that sneak under the radar of federal nutrition standards.

Lastly, the campaign is pushing for the government to provide mandatory funding to teach children healthy eating habits through innovative farm-to-school programs and school gardens.

To show your support, sign-on to our petition, read our platform for updating the National School Lunch Program, or for details on how to organize your own Eat-In on Labor Day, visit our web site at http://www.slowfoodusa.org/timeforlunch.