Parents, let your voices be heard today! Please customize this sample letter and send it to the acting head of the Office of Food & Nutrition Services, Chris Tricarico. His email is: CTricar@schools.nyc.gov
Dear Mr. Tricarico,
I am a parent at PS [ ] and I am writing to you because our children’s health and future is at stake. In New York City, nearly half of all elementary school children and Head Start children are not a healthy weight; 1 in 5 kindergarten students, and 1 in 4 Head Start children, is obese. Kids are also fighting serious disease related to obesity. Children as young as 8 years old are on cholesterol-lowering and blood pressure-lowering medication. Fifty percent of children under 15 have fatty streaks in their arteries, the beginning stages of heart disease. Annual health care costs relating to obesity are over $200 billion.
The Office of Food and Nutrition Services feeds nearly 900,000 hungry children a day, and while your meals meet and exceed the USDA requirements, these meals are highly-processed foods—Tostitos taco bowls, beef patties, popcorn chicken, and mozzarella sticks, to be washed down with chocolate milk sweetened with 20 grams of sugar per 8 ounce container.
As a member of The NYC Healthy School Food Alliance, I am writing to implore you to prioritize our children’s health by implementing the following ideas and changes:
Adopting the Alternative Menu as THE MENU, but with a stronger variety of culturally-relevant choices on that menu so that there is kid buy-in, not banishment; promote the Vegetarian Menu as another healthy option for schools that want to go further;
Eliminating sweetened milk citywide;
Ensuring every school has a water jet Installed (this should not have to be requested by a school, it needs to be installed in every school so that we ensure equity);
Making sure that the few schools without salad bars ensure that every student has the option of salad every day;
Adding fresh cut up fruit to the salad bar (children are more likely to eat fruit if it is sliced rather than whole);
Expanding the scratch-cooking program to 10 elementary schools
We’d also like to understand where you are with School Construction Authority in terms of a city-wide formal evaluation and assessment of the costs and infrastructure requirements necessary to transition to scratch-cooking.
We understand that our mutual goal is feeding hungry children healthy food. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feedback!
Sincerely,
NAME and CONTACT INFO OF PARENT
