Baseball Rodent Productions (aka Max Schreiber and Dana Woldow) and assorted SFUSD students (including Board of Education student delegate Tristan Leder) have done it again with a really well-crafted advocacy video to be shown at a national convention of food writers and slow food advocates next month. See below:
At issue: the ridiculously low reimbursement rate the Federal government gives public schools under the National School Lunch Program — a little over $2 per meal. As Ed Wilkins, SFUSD’s Director of Student Nutrition Services says in the video, after labor and overhead are paid, only about a dollar is left to go to the cost of food. The video offers one view of what a lunch program funded at $5 per meal (with a not insignificant additional investment in a central cooking kitchen) could look like for students.
(Full disclosure: I rounded up a group of 4th graders for some of the voice overs and arranged for a second grade class to draw pictures of healthy lunches).
Rachel Norton 
I know. Isn’t it great? I hope Nancy Pelosi gets to see it – we need to raise the meal reimbursement rate to a much more realistic level and index the amount reimbursed to be more realistic in higher- and lower-cost areas. It’s ridiculous that California’s schools are reimbursed at the same rate as other states where labor and transportation costs are lower.
I love this video! What a great cast–and a great cause.