Food for Thought: School Lunch

This week, the organization I work for is hosting a huge conference in New York City.  I've been running around all week, to and from different sites, escorting our international guests, helping backstage at a performance, waking up way earlier and coming home way later than I normally do, and just generally trying to keep the chaos at a minimum.  I. Am. Pooped.

And here we are, Wednesday night, at 10:15 PM, and I'm trying to fit in a Food for Thought before my battery runs out, or the clock strikes 12, whichever comes first.  So apologies in advance for a flustered and perhaps inarticulate post.

The upside of this hell week, of course, is that I'm meeting a lot of cool people and learning a lot of cool things.  In fact, today, I got to visit the Cypress Hills Community School in East New York.  The folks over there are doing some pretty innovative stuff, involving lots of parent activism and youth collaboration. Which brings us to the theme of tonight's post.

When our tour guide led us down to the school's brand spankin' new cafeteria, memories of my own middle and high school lunches washed over me.  In California, at a private all girls prep school, I was very spoiled in my education, and especially in this aspect of my experience.  Our cafeteria was full of fresh vegetables and outfitted with a very caring staff that encouraged us to learn, even in the dining hall.  You don't have to be a food news junkie to know that the lunches served in American public schools today don't exactly meet those standards.

As it happens, Mark Bittman just posted about this very situation, citing this NPR article and starkly pointing out that, when it comes to school lunch, Brazil's underdeveloped towns are doing better than we are.

On the same day, however, Marion Nestle posited on her blog that perhaps New York City can begin to lead the way in the movement for better school lunches.  And just last week, the folks over at Serious Eats provided a great summary of the positive effects of Alice Waters's Edible Schoolyard campaign.

What does this have to do with Cypress Hills?  Well...

As part of the Cypress Hills Community School (CHCS) permanent facility design, CHLDC staff and parents have long envisioned the school cafeteria as a place where students, teachers, and parents can all eat together, and where the food is fresh, delicious, nutritious, homemade and locally-sourced. CHLDC is excited to announce that the Community School kitchen + cafeteria will be outfitted with the necessary equipment and supplies to make this dream possible. We are also developing programming with NYC School Food, East New York Farms!, and Wellness in the Schools (WITS) to ensure that the kitchen + cafeteria will be a healthy, welcoming, and educational space for all of our students and staff.

[from the Cypress Hills website]

I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with the staff and participants, including youth leaders and students, of this amazing organization.  And let me tell you, seeing their enthusiasm for their new facilities and feeling their contagious excitement for learning only served to keep my spirits up and bring me hope that maybe, just maybe, things are beginning to change.