I want to introduce you to a grassroots initiative called Food Day. Food Day, celebrated on Monday October 24^th, is a nationwide awareness campaign promoting delicious, healthy and affordable food produced in a sustainable, humane way. Key campaign issues related to kids and school lunches are reducing obesity and diet related disease by promoting safe and healthy diets, expanding access to food and ending hunger and curbing junk food marketing aimed at kids.

Quite a few resources have been developed to assist schools in the education process that can be used on October 24 and throughout the school year. Food Day curriculum including classroom lessons to help kids “eat real” and a school guide to celebrate Food Day from Kindergarten to High School are full of lesson plans, materials and fun activities. Other resource guides are the 2^nd edition of “Rethinking School Lunch” by the Center for Ecoliteracy and a “Nourish” middle school curriculum guide. (See: Resources)

Go to www.foodday.org to learn about activities in your area. Click on http://foodday.org/participate/resources#FDCurriculum to download any of the above-mentioned free resources. More and more people are fed up with school lunches and really want to contribute to the cause. Food Day is just one more tool to help stoke the “eat real” movement.

Kathy O’Neill (aka Food Day Enthusiast) a volunteer for the Washington DC Food Day Committee. Food Day is coordinated by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). This initiative is led by Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Rosa DeLauro. The advisory board consists of some prominent voices for change in food policy such as chefs Alice Waters and Dan Barber, author Michael Pollan and professors Michael Roizen and Kelly Brownell. Organizations such as the American Public Health Association, Slow Food USA and the Farmers Market Coalition are also mobilizing their members. Funding comes from philanthropic foundations and generous donors. No government or industry donations are accepted.