Click here for text and illustrations from the presentation, “What’s For Lunch?”
This past Sunday, PCA members, Ecotrust staff, and members of the Portland community gathered at the Billy Frank Conference Center for an educational conference on school lunch.
Ecotrust’s Deborah Kane opened with a presentation of school lunches from past to present. We learned about the National School Lunch Act, and health initiatives for school lunches, and discussed the possible correlation of childhood obesity to the nutritional quality of present day school lunches.
Kristy Obbink, the Nutrition Services Director for Portland Public Schools, then took the mike and gave us a behind the scenes look at school lunch service. Following her comments, Representative Brian Clem shared with us his work to improve the state of school lunch in Oregon and his unique position as a state representative who also works as a farmer.
Clem went on to moderate a panel of movers and shakers on the school lunch scene, made up of the state’s first Farm to School Coordinator, Cory Schreiber; Ecotrust’s Farm-to-School Manager, Michelle Ratcliff; and Joyce Dougherty, the Director of Child Nutrition Programs for the Oregon Department of Education. Once Clem opened it up for questions from the audience, it become clear just how motivated and interested our community is in improving school lunches, and just how primed our panel members are to make it happen.
What also become obvious, and was stated by one woman who was visiting from Iowa, was that people from surrounding states look to Oregon as a leader on this issue. We are the first state in the nation with a full-time farm to school coordinator in both the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Education, and can become a national model for crafting solutions that result in healthier children and at the same time support our state’s agricultural economy.
The event ended with a discussion on the hopes audience members have for school lunch in the future. Some called out “a garden in every school,” others championed organic offerings and all made it clear that there is more work to be done and that motivated individuals will make these milestones happen.
For information and notes on the meeting, and to learn more ways to get involved with this issue, visit www.ecotrust.org.
