At the School Nutrition Association of Vermont annual conference today, U.S. Senator Peter Welch commended the work locals are doing in the face of federal cuts. But, as WAMC’s North Country Bureau Chief Pat Bradley reports, the Democrat said more help from Washington is needed.
The theme of the annual conference is “Seeds of Change: Growing Vermont’s Future” and conversation focused on how the proper nutrition for kids helps them succeed in school.
Welch told the school nutritionists that it has been a struggle in the U.S. to have a policy with a goal to make sure kids are well fed when they are at school.
“The statistics about how they learn better, in a way it’s kind of trivializing the reality. That is something we know. You should not have to argue that kids are better off if they have a healthy diet and the steadiness of good meals. What I think is so important about what you’ve done is you’ve created, in an institutional way, the mechanisms where our schools can be able to do this.”
While he praised the efforts of Vermont’s school nutritionists, he also said how leaders in Washington set policy for feeding children is unacceptable.
“In the One Big Beautiful Bill $180 billion was taken out of the SNAP program. That is absolutely unconscionable. There is greater need for nutrition than ever before. So, I’m appalled at what happened with the cuts in SNAP.”
Welch said they are trying to make up for some of the cuts through the Farm Bill. He also said that local agriculture is crucial to school nutrition programs.
“We’ve got to get a farm bill that is about the community values, about local farmers doing local production, about food that’s going to be served to kids. The big challenge that we’ve always had, and where Vermont has been in the leadership, is all about trying to have the priorities of our Farm Bill be about our communities. And that starts, of course, with our kids who need that good nutrition.”
Nutrition association board member and Essex-Westford School District Child Nutrition Operations Specialist Kelly White says the most important thing they do is feed children, but they are challenged in finding funds for meals.
“We are the biggest restaurant in the nation, basically. As so we have to do that, for lunch it’s $4.80. We have to feed every child at lunch for $4.80 and that has to include the labor, the prep, the food, the infrastructure that goes into it all. We don’t have enough money. We need more money. We need more funding for sure. And to get better food on the plates for our kids local food is huge and important and we need more money to do that.”
Welch has sponsored a number of school and child nutrition bills including the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act and the Improving Access to Nutrition Act.
