Dear New Yorker,
Good news! At the urging of parents, principals and the NYC Council, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) announced that it's reviving a lunch program that recruits professional chefs to help public school cafeterias prepare healthy lunches.
We're thrilled that the DOE is continuing its partnership with the organizer of the program, Wellness in the Schools (WITS), to help bring healthy meals, made from scratch, directly into schools.
Improving the quality of school meals is an important step in preventing the obesity epidemic that's so troubling to all of us.
Innovative organizations such as WITS have worked with principals, cafeteria staff, parents and students to ensure that more children can eat healthy, unprocessed meals on a daily basis.
We believe these efforts are fully aligned with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's new school meals standards set to take effect this fall, and hope to see the DOE continue to collaborate with WITS and other organizations so that diversified, unprocessed food not only remains an option for these children, but can be expanded to other schools as well.
You can read more about this important program in this NY Times article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/28/nyregion/new-york-city-revives-school-lunch-program-that-uses-professional-chefs.html?_r=1 .
Have a great Labor Day weekend, and we hope to be in touch again soon with additional news and updates.
Thanks!
Sincerely,
Christine C. Quinn
Speaker
NYC Council
Robert Jackson
Chair, Education Committee
NYC Council
Marie del Carmen Arroyo
Chair, Health Committee
NYC Council
Stephen Levin
Council Member
NYC Council
Gale A. Brewer
Council Member
NYC Council
Brad Lander
Council Member
NYC Council