Parents Better School Food Petition

Members of Parents for Better D.C. School Food have recently developed petition language that you can use to urge members of the D.C. Council to pass the "Healthy Schools Act." Feel free to copy this message and send it to your council member.

As parents/guardians of children enrolled in DC Public Schools, we strongly support the Healthy Schools Act and urge all council members to vote in favor of this important piece of legislation. We believe industrialized, highly-refined and processed foods have no place in our schools and that all children deserve fresh, healthy meals made from whole, preferably local, ingredients. We urge DCPS to teach our children healthful eating habits, eliminate "junk" food from our schools, encourage a resilient, sustainable local agriculture system, and provide detailed, accurate, and easily accessible menu information and ingredient lists for all school meals. We urge you to support measures that would:

1) Mandate that schools buy local whenever possible, and provide financial incentives for those that do;

2) Provide a central space for processing and storing healthy, local foods for school meals;

3) Require that schools disclose where and how foods they serve are grown as well as all ingredients in school meals; and

4) Require collaboration among government agencies and community partners to integrate hands-on farm to school education into the cafeteria and classroom (including a mandatory Farm to School Week each year).


Signed,

(Your name)