Statement of Ms. Mary Quiello, Connecticut food-service worker, at the USDA listening session in Boston, Massachusetts. June 10, 2008.

My name is Mary Quiello and I am here today on behalf of the New Haven Public School cafeteria workers and the Campaign for Quality Services. I have worked as food service worker in New Haven schools for 13 years.

The campaign is a joint project of the Service Employees International Union and UNITE-HERE. Together, our unions represent more than 2 million families in the United States.

Across the country our two unions collectively represent more than ten thousand food service workers in school cafeterias. Many of us are parents of public school children - and all of us are taxpayers.

We work with communities across the country to raise standards in school cafeterias.

We are here today to call for a greater investment in child nutrition programs. We are also here to make clear that food service workers care about nutrition and have an important role to play in improving school meal programs

Our job is to serve healthy meals to children. But here in New Haven, the food we were being asked to serve was so poor that my friend Cheryl Barbara - a cook with 20 years experience - packed her daughter's lunch to avoid having her eat the meals served in the school cafeterias.

A lot of the food was packaged and processed- there was not enough fresh produce- portion sizes were often too small and there was too much emphasis on the sale of unhealthy a la carte items like French fries and ice cream.

We also weren't allowed to use our own recipes. This was a problem, because we're in those kitchens and cafeterias every day and we know what the children like.

Finally, there was no investment in staff training and development. Cooks who retired or left were not replaced and many of the kitchens were closed, forcing us to serve re-heated meals from the Central Kitchen that were at times as much as five days old.

As cooks and servers in the schools with decades of experience, we knew it didn't have to be this way.

So the food service workers in New Haven Schools led a city-wide effort to improve food quality. We took our concerns to the school board and the city council. We wrote letters to the newspapers and gave interviews to the media and we actively partnered with parents and local food advocates around a call to improve food quality. Thankfully the School Board has recently taken steps to address many concerns I have mentioned, but it is only the first step.

Today we are working closely with New Haven food advocates on a plan to improve school nutrition and we are proud to say the New Haven Public Schools and the community are focused on food quality in a way that they have not been in years. We are on our way to changing, for the better, the way our school meal program is run.

But more needs to be done.

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. $2.47 per meal is not enough. We need to invest in fresher, healthier food and we think the current federal reimbursement rate is too low and needs to be raised by at least fifty cents per meal.

Food inflation is higher than the overall increase in the cost of living. Kids drink a lot of milk and we use a lot of cheese in our meals. The cost of dairy products has also increased faster than the cost of living. We also need a system to automatically increase the amount our schools get for the free and reduced lunches every year.

We want to see increased participation in school meal programs. Serving better tasting, fresher meals is one way to do it. But we also need to ensure students who rely on free and reduced meal programs have access by making it easier to enroll in these programs. In turn this will strengthen food programs because they will be getting the funding they need to feed every student.

As kids get older they are sometimes embarrassed about being in the free or reduced food programs so they don't want to sign up. Families with more than one child in the school system have to sign up for each child separately.

Everyone knows that kids learn better when they get good breakfasts and lunches. We need systems to streamline the application process like demographic studies that could establish a level of funding for our schools instead of relying on individual applications.

We also think there needs to be more training and staff development for food service workers. With a greater emphasis on training we would be better equipped to handle the serious food safety risks we encounter on a daily basis.

Finally, we need to be given the tools to be able to help promote better nutrition and to help identify children at risk of obesity related illnesses such as diabetes. We see these kids everyday- if we had the training, we could better support parents and teachers in helping improve children's eating habits.

We believe that with the participation of parents, workers, students, administrators and engaged community members it is possible to create a meal program that meets high standards for nutrition and creates a solid foundation for learning. Our children deserve no less.