Super cute story alert!
Wyntergrace Williams, the 14-year-old daughter of Montel Williams, is coming to Washington to lobby Congress to amend the Child Nutrition Act to add vegetarian options to school lunches, and, to support her cause, she’s sending a letter to Malia and Sasha Obama asking for their assistance.
Here’s an excerpt from the letter:
My name is Wyntergrace and I’m a big fan of yours. It seems that we have a few things in common. We all love dogs, live on the East Coast, have fantastic moms and maternal grand moms and both of our dads are quite famous. In our household we also eat healthy foods and I am working on a school project to get healthier foods in schools across the country. I would love for you to join my campaign and sign my petition and encourage other students and families to follow our own and respective families’ lead.
The problem is that many schools do not offer enough healthful choices. This is especially true when it comes to vegetarian meals. A lot of us ask for vegetarian meals out of compassion for animals, like I do, or because of concerns about health or the environment, but all students would benefit from having a variety of healthy options, and other plant-based meals available …
If we work together, we can make sure all students are able to eat healthy school lunches. I’ve created a petition to get healthy vegetarian lunch options in all schools. Would you please sign my petition at HealthySchoolLunches.org? And please ask your friends to sign, too. Thank you for helping me with my project and I would love to get together with you both sometime!
The fancy-schmancy private school Sasha and Malia attend, Sidwell Friends, already offers vegetarian options, but Wyntergrace is right: Many public schools do not provide such options for their students. What a fantastic cause, and it’s nice to see celeb spawn in the media for something other than Celebrity Rehab.
I think this is a great idea. Kids should have an option to eat something other than sloppy joes and soggy chicken nuggets at lunch.
And since we’re making all these changes for the environment anyway, it only makes sense to switch to more vegetarian/vegan options. That UN report stating that animal agriculture is responsible for more global warming than all the cars in the world came out 3 years ago now. (http://www.fao.org/ag/magazine/0612sp1.htm)
On a separate note, Wyntergrace is kind of a pretty name, but it also makes me think of a new flavor of gum.
Wyntergrace? lord
I know, right?
Vegetarian options would be nice, but then again ANY healthy school lunches would be good. Our school used to give nutritional breakdowns on the weekly menus, but I think they got tired of me sending nasty letters to school over the amount of saturated fats and sodium that they were pumping into the kids.
Then again, I grew up in an era where school cooks… could actually, you know, cook.
Get these kids off their butts, the DS’s out of their hands and send them outside!
Surely healthy lunches are a good thing, but its what’s happening when they LEAVE school that’s making them obese.
nobody said anything about childhood obesity.
The point is that they wouldn’t have to worry so much about one yucky meal if the kids were actually staying active.
Poor lunch + playing outsite = cancel each other out, yay
Poor lunch + computer/tv/videogames/sitting = fat blobs
So accusatory.
What aspect, may I ask, would you assume she’s referring to when she mentions “concerns for health”?
Arthritis? Dimentia? No dumbass, its childhood obesity, hence the more heathful options.
wow. first of all, i was not accusing you of anything, so how was my post accusatory? secondly, there are a lot more reasons to eat healthy than to avoid obesity. eating lots of unhealthy food can cause a whole slew of health problems besides obesity. i wasn’t being nasty, so i’m really not sure why you are.
This kid’s got brains.
I agree that schools should definitely be offering vegetarian choices, or just healthier choices in general. But, when I was younger, I never bought my food from the cafeteria. My mom packed my lunches with granola, yogurt, celery, carrots, broccoli, banana, turkey/chicken sandwiches. And it was that practice that was carried from home to school to adulthood and onward. I think the brunt of the problem is that ppl just don’t make the time or take the extra effort to focus on their health. It might be far too easy for someone to throw some processed Lunchables and a twinkie in a bag and shove the kid out the door.
Our health is what matters most. If you do not have the time to take care of yourself, then what life is this?
we are laying off hundreds of thousands of first year teachers and cutting budgets for arts and sports programs. i think that while it’s a wonderful idea and LOVE to see kids taking an initiative like this, it’s ill timed. we have bigger fish to fry at this point. our kids are lucky they have lunch programs.
It’s a nice thought. Unfortunately, it would end up being too costly – at least I think so. I know in Chicago and the neighboring areas around me have actually cut things out of the menus due to cost.
And is it just me, or does she look like a little Aaliyah?
I am a teacher in an urban school and I think it’s fantastic that children are taking the initiative to petition for vegetarian lunches. I am a vegetarian and have a few vegetarian students, some of whom do so for religious reasons, and yet our cafeteria only serves pre-packaged, non-vegetarian meals. While we do have MUCH bigger fish to fry in education, it would be nice if the students could have healthy meal in between. It would help their focus and concentration for the rest of their long school day ahead. Also, many of my students come from low income families who do not have the means for nutritious foods, so healthy meals are just not something they are given or taught about at home. It’d be nice if our schools could give children that model to carry over into adulthood.
teachers are heroes. :)
The truth is, many of the most nutritious foods ARE the least expensive foods out there (beans, whole grains, fresh whole veggies). The problem is that there is so little focus on teaching kids to understand about nutrition and prepare fresh and wholesome foods; those kids grow up to be adults that think food is what comes from a box on the shelf of a grocery store.
Erm… just so you know: healthy foods, especially fresh fruit & veg are still more expensive than all that chemicaly processed crap.
While I agree it would be nice, it seems too costly right now. If these kids are going to be so proactive about something, they could just make their own lunch in the morning.
I agree…do we really need to spend money we do not have by focusing on providing what people can do for themselves.
Also, how much does Wyntergrace (WTF?) look like her poppa? Wowzers.
great.
now we have one more thing to spend my tax dollars on.
maybe we should stop the bleeding in this country before we create more cute ways to spend money we don’t have.
has anyone ever considered that vegetarians can pack a lunch if necessary.
It is not as if kids are forced to eat only what the school offers.
There are many occasions that I prepare a lunch from home for my daughter when the menu is awful.
seriously doubt that having vegetarian options at schools is really going to affect how much you are paying in taxes, but by all means, have your little bitchfest.
When ketchup is considered a vegetable because its cheaper than tomatoes, I’d imagine it would have some sort of effect on tax dollars.
When our government spends 360,000.00 on a photoshoot of Air Force One I think I am entitled to a little bitchfest and a questioning of what would be spent. :)
Study what we spend and more importantly what we waste with American tax dollars and you might be tempted to have a bitchfest too.
Cheers!
why should only vegetarian children have to bring their lunch from home? maybe we should save money and just cut all lunch programs and all the kids can pack a lunch.
Montel and the mother should be fined heftily for naming that poor child such an atrocious “name.”
I can’t get past the stripper name. So I don’t care what she’s hawking.
What a great read, thanks for that. Good for her!
This is such a great project for this young lady to do. I bet she has a wonderful future ahead of her! I wish that they had offered more healthful alternatives when my children were in school!
cool!
why have there been no new posts for like 2 days?? hope everything is ok!
Oooh! I went to Sidwell friends. I’m a vegetarian, and i love her idea, but DC public schools are total wrecks right now, and should probably spend the money on something else.
what an awesome young lady!! good for her! I wish her the best! what an awesome idea