ACHIEVE & Partners Invite You to the Rethinking School Lunch NM Visioning Meeting

Please join us for our second community discussion on
innovative strategies to bring healthy and sustainable food
into our schools. We will be using the data collected from
our recent survey to guide the conversation.

Saturday, October 22nd, 2011, 9:00am-12:00pm

Harwood Art Center, 1114 7th St NW, Albuquerque

This event is FREE and open to the public

We Want Your Feedback! Survey/Rethinking School Lunch NM

More than 40 community members and organizations attended the Rethinking School Lunch community discussion organized in February, 2011 by ACHIEVE (Action Communities for Health Innovation and EnVironmental ChangE). As a result of the community discussion, those present were energized and committed to planning and participating in a visioning process to develop a Rethinking School Lunch New Mexico initiative (RSL New Mexico). The following organizations have acted as the core committee in beginning this visioning process:

• Action Communities for Health Innovation and Environmental Change (ACHIEVE): www.achievecommunities.org
• APS Physical Activity & Nutrition Advisory Council (PANAC): www.aps.edu/schools/volunteer-at-aps/list-volunteer-opportunities
• Mid Region Council of Governments Agriculture Collaborative (MRCOG): www.localfoodnm.org
• New Mexico Collaboration to End Hunger: www.endnmhunger.org
• APS Growing Gardens Team: http://growinggardensteam.wordpress.com

The RSL New Mexico committee is planning a visioning workshop for early Fall 2011. The committee has developed a community survey to collect information that will be used to help guide the visioning workshop and the overall goals of RSL New Mexico initiative. Parents, teachers, school administration, and community members are invited to complete this survey, which will take only between 5 to 15 minutes to complete.

Please click the link to start:
https://www.research.net/s/RethinkingSchoolLunchNM2011


Contact Info
Email: SchoolLunchNM@gmail.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rethinking-School-Lunch-NM/171676482893254 (or search "Rethinking School Lunch NM")
Rethinking School Lunch is a planning and systems approach framework developed by the Center for Ecoliteracy and is based on a positive vision: healthy children ready to learn, “food literate” graduates, invigorated local communities, sustainable agriculture, and a healthy environment. RSL New Mexico is using this framework to help guide the initiative.

Please email us if you would like to be placed on our contact list so you can be informed about the upcoming community meeting or other developments.
Thank you for taking the time to complete this survey.

Rethinking School Lunch Community Discussion Follow-Up

Thanks to all who braved the cold to attend the Rethinking School Lunch event at the Harwood Arts Center on Friday with Zenbia Barlow from the Center for EcoLiteracy. It turned out to be an awesome meeting with a large and diverse group (I think we had over 40 people representing anti-hunger, anti-obesity, pro-gardening, local food, school food, classroom instruction and more). Zenobia was literally blown-away by the turn-out and by the existing work and potential for collaboration!

At the meeting we agreed everyone in the room was interested in having ACHIEVE, the New Mexico Collaboration to End Hunger, the APS Growing Gardens Team, PANAC (the Physical Activity and Nutrition Advisory Council for APS), and the Agricultural Collaborative at MRCOG co-sponsor a follow-up event when the legislative session is over in order to vision work around developing "Rethinking School Lunch New Mexico" or a "School Outside the Box" initiative of some sort.

We are actually incredibly "ripe" in terms of all of the great work already going on in the community, including some of the initiatives at APS (like the fruit and vegetable tastings), but we now need to figure out if we can come together to envision something more coherent. The five co-sponsoring groups will meet and will be in touch regarding the follow-up meeting.

Rethinking School Lunch Initiative--2 Events with the Center for Ecoliteracy

Please join us this week for a lecture and a community discussion on sustainability and healthy school food intiatives with Ms. Zenobia Barlow, Executive Director of The Center for Ecoliteracy.

Lecture: "Living Systems and Leadership"
Thursday February 3rd, 12:30pm-2pm
UNM Student Union Bldg. Santa Ana A&B
Sponsored by RWJF Center for Health Policy at UNM
For more inforation contact  (505) 277-0130

Community Discussion: Rethinking School Lunch
Friday February 4th, 3:30pm -5pm
Harwood Art Center
1114 7th Street, Northwest, ABQ, NM 87102
Refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by ACHIEVE
For more information contact Erin Engelbrecht, ACHIEVE Coordinator: (505) 350-8984


These events are free and open to the public.
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The Center for Ecoliteracy is a leader in the green schooling movement.

Smart by Nature™, the Center’s framework and services for schooling for sustainability, is based on two decades of work with schools and organizations in more than 400 communities across the United States and numerous other countries.

The Center is best known for its pioneering work with school gardens, school lunches, and integrating ecological principles and sustainability into school curricula.

The Center for Ecoliteracy offers books; teaching guides; professional development seminars; a sustainability leadership academy; keynote presentations; and consulting services. Among its books for educators, parents, and other people interested in sustainability are:

•Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability (foreword by Daniel Goleman);
•Ecological Literacy: Educating Our Children for a Sustainable World (foreword by David W. Orr);
•Big Ideas: Linking Food, Culture, Health, and the Environment (foreword by Michael Pollan).

The Center’s work has been praised by numerous organizations, including the National Science Teachers Association, National Wildlife Federation, North American Association for Environmental Education, and Participant Media, producers of the Academy Award nominee Food, Inc. Others who have endorsed its work include Daniel Goleman, Richard Heinberg, David W. Orr, Michael Pollan, Frances Moore Lappé, Joanna Macy, and Alice Waters.

The Center for Ecoliteracy was cofounded by Fritjof Capra, physicist and systems thinker; Peter Buckley, former CEO of Esprit International and environmental philanthropist; and Zenobia Barlow, now its executive director. It is located in the award-winning David Brower Center, a home for environmental and social action in Berkeley, California.

The Center's website offers hundreds of downloadable resource materials, including practical guides, essays by leading writers and experts, and inspiring stories of school communities and organizations across the country that are engaged in this vital work.

http://www.ecoliteracy.org/