School Meal Enhancemeant Act and Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act of 2009

I am lobbying for two bills. The first act is the Healthy for Healthy Schools Act of 2009, sponsored by Blanche Lincoln. This aims have nutritious school meals that meet dietary guidelines. I have emailed Blanche Lincoln the following message.

To United States Senator Blanche Lincoln:                                 Hi I’m Emma Connell. I am currently attending Science Leadership Academy and for my American Government class I have been assigned the task to lobby for an issue. I decided to lobby for something that affects me and many other kids all across the nation: this issue is school lunches.  I currently focused on lobbying for the Healthy Food For Healthy Schools Act of 2009, proposed by you Blanche Lincoln. So far the Act has been introduced on September 8th, 2009 and reviewed by the committee and has been referred to the committee of agricultural, nutrition, and forestry. But even if the Bill does get passed many schools aren’t up to date with kitchen standards. Although, the United States Department of Agricultural can offer nutritious foods, schools  still won’t have the materials to cook nutritious food and instead unhealthy food such as chicken nuggets and pizza will continue to dominate school meals. How do you plan to fix this problem? Are there any issues you are having with this bill?

I also emailed people supporters and non-supporters of the School Meal Enhancement Act, which strives for a higher percentage of kids to receive free or reduced school meals. I focused on this act because if the Healthy Food for Healthy Schools Act of 2009 gets passed this will allow for nutritious food to be available to a larger percentage of kids. I emailed supporters of the act such as Joe Sestak and Robert Brady. I also emailed representative Jim McGovern who is against the bill. In my email i asked him why he is not in support of the act and if there is anything that can be changed in the bill, that would get him to support the School Meal Enhancement Act.

To Joe Sestak and Robert Brady:                                                 Hi I’m Emma Connell. I am currently attending Science Leadership Academy and for my American Government class I have been assigned the task to lobby for an issue. I decided to lobby for something that affects me and many other kids all across the nation: this issue is school lunches.  I currently focused on lobbying for the School Meal Enhancement Act proposed by Joe Sestak.  So far the School Meal Enhancement Act has been introduced,  referred to committee, reported by committee, and has been presented to the House of Representatives who earlier proposed voting on a Senate-passed version of the child nutrition bill. However, 106 House Democrats addressed Speaker Nancy Pelosi  and said they were no longer in support of the Senate version. Instead they called for their own House bill, which does not contain the food stamp cuts. Further debate and discussion on the bill will not take place until winter 2010.  I was curious if you knew anything about the date( s) for debate and discussion of the School Meal Enhancement Act. I was also wondering if you have enough support of the Act and if you do need support, how do you plan to gain support of democrats against the bill. Would it be by reducing how the act cuts into food stamps? If there is anything I can do please let me know.

-Thank you

Not only did I send out emails but I also made fliers and posted them around the city. On the flier the two bills pending for legislation and the issue of unhealthy school meals is addressed. I have links for people to go to and vote in support of both bills.

Below is proof that I emailed people and pictures of my fliers posted.