Statement of Mr. Gamaliel Andrade, California food-service worker, at the USDA listening session in San Francisco, California. August 6, 2008.

My name is Gamaliel Andrade and I am here today on behalf of the Los Angeles Unified School District food service workers, our union Service Employees International Union Local 99, and the Campaign for Quality Services.

For the past five years, I have worked in the Murchinson Elementary School cafeteria. I have 13 years experience as a school food service worker.

Like Mrs. Barnes, I am here to call for a greater investment in child nutrition. I am also here to make clear that food service workers have an important role to play in improving school meal programs.

One my many roles at work is serving meals to the children in the early education center at the school. Some of the children who go there are as young as three or four and I have watched them grow over the past five years.

The early education center is a community based program that operates much like Head Start. Most of the children who go to Murchinson Education Center live in the Ramona Gardens Housing Project. Some of them are there from morning until 5pm and we feed them breakfast, lunch and a snack. There is no doubt in my mind that Monday through Friday, for many of these children, the meals they are served at the center are the only ones they eat during the day.

Once I've delivered meals to the education center, I work in the cafeteria. I do prep work for the salad bar and I work the cafeteria lines. I do keep tabs on these children. I will leave the line and talk to students if I see they are not eating. I think the students respond to me because I don't treat them like just another kid, I treat them as individuals.

We do see children who are hungry in cafeteria. If a child comes up to me and asks for more, I will try to give them another piece of fruit or something extra, you can tell which ones may not be eating enough or the right things at home, they're the ones who run in for breakfast in the morning and I won't deny them an extra serving.

Everyone knows that kids learn better when they get good breakfasts and lunches. I have some recommendations that I think the USDA should consider to help improve these programs. First, I would recommend that the USDA promote the use of fresher food. I believe children would be more open to school meals if we relied less on pre-cooked and packaged food and served only the best quality produce.

More money is needed so we can serve healthier meals. Everybody knows processed foods that are high in sugar and fat can contribute to diabetes and obesity. These foods are often cheaper but they are not healthy. The $2.47 per meal the federal government now pays to subsidize free school lunches is not enough. We need to invest in fresher, healthier food and we think the current reimbursement rate is too low and needs to be raised by at least fifty cents per meal.

Just to give one example of how fresher food can make a difference: The salad bar was a recent addition at my school and the students love it. I think it helps broaden their palates and introduce them to foods they are not used to eating at home. But we also need this kind of diversity in the entrees we serve. I know the kids like hamburgers, chicken nuggets and chicken patties but we should be offering them more choices. And while at my school we have made improvements such as taking nachos off the menu, I am still concerned about some of the items we serve such as pizza.

I think we need more resources to also make sure we have the necessary tools. At my school, we sometimes have to work with shoddy equipment. I tell my manager that we can't make the meals with worn out pots and pans -- especially when the Teflon is flaking off -- but I'm told we don't have the budget to replace them. I think the USDA should consider requiring school districts to set aside a certain amount of the school meal program budget for supplies and to replace worn out equipment.

I have one final suggestion: I am concerned that school lunch lines have grown too long and it takes children at the end of the line 15 minutes or more to be served - that's half their lunch period and some grow tired of waiting and just give up. I think this happens because we don't have enough staff working the cafeteria lines and if children are not eating, this is a problem.

Thank-you for this opportunity to discuss school meals and child nutrition. I am looking forward to working with the USDA to make improvements to these extremely important programs.