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August 10th, 2010

On August 28 at the Bottletree Cafe, Alabama Possible, the Greater Birmingham Community Food Partners, Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities, Jones Valley Urban Farm, and the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival present the Southeastern premiere of Lunch Line, a school lunch documentary. This film reframes the school lunch debate through an examination of the school lunch program’s surprising past, uncertain present, and possible future.

Lunch Line reveals the National School Lunch Program’s surprising history and the unexpected ways it has grown and changed over the years to feed more than 31 million children every day,” said Michael Graziano, who co-directed the film with Ernie Park, his partner at Uji Films.  According to Park, “The film pulls back the curtain to reveal, through school lunch, how large-scale social change can work.

The screening will be followed by a panel discussion about the film and the child nutrition program. The discussion will include Graziano, Scott Silver, farm-to-school coordinator for Jones Valley Urban Farm, and Maureen Alexander, Child Nutrition Program Director for Shelby County. Amanda Storey, coordinator of Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities, will moderate.

Currently, 54 percent of Alabama children receive free or federally reduced school lunches. Kristina Scott, executive director of the Alabama Poverty Project, says now is the time for Alabamians to engage in discussions about childhood nutrition and food security.

“13.3 percent of Alabamians are food insecure and we are the second most overweight state in the country. Food security is not just about having enough to eat; it is also about access to adequate nutrition, which many low-income Alabamians do not have,” said Scott.

Posted by Robyn Hyden