Mission Statement of the Georgia Nutrition Coalition:
The Georgia Nutrition Coalition intends to (i) raise awareness of the connection between children’s healthy eating habits and their short and long-term physical health, emotional well-being and academic performance and (ii) cooperate with schools, the county food and nutrition service, teachers and parents in promoting a school wellness environment, developing fun, integrated nutrition education experiences, and adopting a comprehensive food policy that seeks to improve upon minimum regulatory standards, models healthy eating habits and embraces fresh, local and sustainable food sources.
2 Comments
March 31, 2008 at 10:37 pm
How beautiful! You have created a truly attractive blog with lots of useful information. I’m impressed!
April 18, 2008 at 11:33 am
First of all I must congratulate all of you for the great job you did last night. You did a great job bringing together such a diverse group and keeping the meeting organized and running smoothly.
I think it is very important to hear all viewpoints and to see the diversity of opinions and applaud you for creating a forum where all sides had the opportunity to voice their concerns.
At the end of the evening I stood by our information near the door and heard many interesting comments. Most interesting were the comments of the elected officials who were encouraging the GA Nutrition Coalition representatives to “focus on one thing”. This exact comment was made by three different officials.
Granted as a holistic practitioner and devotee, I believe in the importance of focus and balance to achieve goals, but I sincerely doubt that is what these gentleman meant. Behind the “focus on one thing” comment, I heard, “think small and back down and let us take care of the big picture.”
Well we saw the big picture at Sope Creek last night, and it was one of government agencies promoting single message programs like eat 5 that do not work. It was one of School Nutrition Managers who repeat the mantra of the FDA over and over and still continue to sell, I repeat sell, products that contain high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, artificial flavors and other highly refined ingredients. It was one of children who are suffering and struggling to learn in this environment. And it was one of parents who are feed up with thinking small and backing down and allowing others to make the decisions.
Please do not “focus on one thing” or think small. Continue to be visionary, continue to provide forums for all voices to be heard and think big and be visionary.
I am here to support you and your group in any way the I and Children’s Wellness Network can. And for all the parents, teachers and school lunch professionals who are feeling overwhelmed, I am here also. There are programs that work and those people who have developed those programs in Berkeley Unified School District in California and Appleton in Wisconsin and Burlington Vermont Schools all have incredible programs. I am in touch with representatives from all these schools and all have been extremely open and generous with information and resources and are very supportive. We will also be bringing Amy Kalafa of Two Angry Moms to Georgia on June 13 and encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunity to meet Amy and to learn more about her role in the movement to create viable, healthy school lunch programs throughout the country.
And I can not end this post without saying what an invaluable resource all of us have in Erin Croom from Georgia Organics. Erin has worked with Farm to School in Vermont where they have programs in 75 schools, and she is bringing her knowledge and expertise to Georgia. She is committed, passionate and highly capable and we are should all be supporting her in creating F2S programs here.