Accomplishments in 2023

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Health Future Students & Earth Act (H.R.3276) Coalition

 

• Reintroduced the Healthy Future Students and Earth Pilot Program Act, which now includes plant-based milk options and a focus on organic food.

 

• Collected 116 signatures for our petition to advance The Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids Act Coalition and created a national comment campaign to collect public comments from students, organizations, schools, caregivers, and food service workers for the Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns.

 

• Compiled testimonies for Plant-Forward School Lunches in CNR.

 

• Organized a USDA Youth Comment Party where youth learned how to write and submit public comments.

 

• Organized support for the NYC Food Education Coalition to provide accessible foods to all NYC schools.

 

• Co-organized the Gubernatorial Forum on Hunger, Poverty, Food, and Economic Opportunity and organized a call-to-action to Congress Members, asking them to support the Healthy Future Students and Earth Act.

 

• Led an organizational sign-on campaign against the EATS Act.

 

• Created a Healthy Future Students and Earth Act call-in video challenge.

 

• Coordinated the first-ever youth-led plant-based D.C. Fly-In.

 

Accomplishments in 2022

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• Congressional and Hill meetings: Coalition members participated in 70+ Congressional, USDA, and White House meetings related to plant-based school food in the 2022 calendar year. 

 

• The Youth Steering Committee (YSC) members participated in 30+ Congressional and Hill meetings. 

• The YSC organized the first-ever youth-lead plant-based USDA meeting. The meeting was attended by Julie Brewer, Janelle Jack, Emily Anderson, Debra Eisenbarth, Heather Hopwood, Liz Hermsen, Stacey Viera, and Yibo Wood at USDA. 

 

• Provisions for plant-based milk and plant-based food modeled after our H.R.4108 were included in the proposed CNR bill and passed the House Committee on Education & Labor. 

 

• Language that supports plant-based foods and non-dairy milk were included in the House Ag Appropriations Report. 

 

• Held Hill briefing attended by 150+ Congressional staff (excellent turnout for a recess week!) featuring Billie Eilish, Maggie Baird, Genesis Butler, Eloísa Trinidad, and Tracye McQuirter, along with Reps Velázquez and Bowman. The livestream was viewed 6.9k times. Seven more Reps co-sponsored the bill after the briefing, for a total of 39 co-sponsors. The bill will be re-introduced in 2023. 

 

• The briefing received coverage in Politico (behind a paywall), VegNews, Common Dreams, The Beet, and One Green Planet. 

 

• From the briefing, we produced short clips of Billie and Maggie’s remarks, which have been shared by Friends of the Earth, DefaultVeg, Center for Biological Diversity, Support & Feed, HSLF, and others, amassing over 25k views. 

 

• Meatless Monday, Chef Ann Foundation, EWG, Hip Hop Is Green, Black Veg Society, Physicians Committee, Coalition for Healthy School Food, Brighter Green, Center for a Livable Future, Earthjustice, FARM USA, Factory Farming Awareness Coalition, Chilis on Wheels, Vegan Activist Alliance, Plant Powered Metro NY, Balanced, Genesis Butler, HSLF, Tamerlaine Sanctuary, and others all also helped to promote the briefing and the media coverage of it. 

 

• We produced a new video featuring youth across the country sharing why they support the Healthy Future Students & Earth Act. The video was played at the Hill briefing and has been viewed 500 times on YouTube and thousands of times on social media thanks to promotion from NYCLASS, Youth Climate Save South LA, Lean & Green Kids,Black VegFest, Jewish Youth Climate Movement, The Raven Corps, Planetary Health Collective, EWG, Acterra, Tamerlaine Sanctuary, Friends of the Earth, and others. 

 

• We reached out to dozens of influencers asking them to share the youth video, and many did, including @nutrition_facts_org, @DrMcMacken @thedoctoryami, @plantbasedjax, @zerowastechef, Frances Moore Lappé, @unchainedtv, @plantbasedkidsfdn, @naijhaspeaks, @thelandofkush, and others. 

 

• We created a texting number (‘planet’ to 30644) that was shared in the livestream and the videos, and which has brought 455 people to our action alert to email and tweet the video to their Members of Congress. Action alerts were sent by Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Physician’s Committee, Coalition for Healthy School Food, and others.