Dear friends, partners and supporters of Foodfight

Our second teacher training program that took place at Teachers' College last week was a resounding success. We had over twenty participants representing eight new schools that we are welcoming to the FoodFight family. All in all we will be in twenty schools next year which doubles our reach and impact. We are extremely pleased with the results of last year's pilot and are looking forward to begin our work with a new and expanded group of schools.

We had an impressive line up of speakers at the training. Malinda Sanna from Spark NYC led us on a fascinating "Sensory Safari" to demonstate the power of branding and the way it shapes our relationship with consumer products. Our partners at Teachers College, Drs. Isobel Contento and Pam Koch provided us with a theoretical framework for understanding behavioral change. Culinary educator Julie Negrin miraculously managed to make Nutrition 101 the most fascinating of subjects. Justine Simon from Brighter Green educated us about the environmental impact of our industrial food system and Miquela Craytor from the Sustainable South Bronx talked about her impressive grassroots initiatives. On the last day, there was a lively panel discussion with Joel Berg (New York Coalition Against Hunger), Kim Kessler (NYC Policy Advisor), Tanya Fields (The Blk Projek) and Javier Lopez (Strategic Alliance for Health). Anne Thacker from Vitamix, a generous sponsor of FoodFight, demonstrated easy and inspired recipes. Our delicious lunch on the last day was catered by Red Rabbit, a new partner of ours that brings farm fresh food to schools.

Here's what some of our teachers had to say about the experience:

“Thank you so much for doing this work—you’ve really synthesized and coordinated a huge amount of loose initiatives in a way that makes it more meaningful, for us and for our students. I think it’s very valuable to hear from people/experts in person, interact, reflect and build a community!” –Kate Burch, Humanities Prep

“I am so proud to be participating in the FoodFight program. There were so many movers and shakers presenting in this workshop—the lineup was diverse and impressive. I am pretty sure FoodFight changed my life and hopefully the lives of my students in the future.” –Joni Tonda, Park Slope Collegiate

FoodFight is happy to announce our new partners and sponsors:

• Red Rabbit - Delivering local, nutritious food to independent and charter schools. They graciously catered our wrap-up lunch. We are exploring partnership opportunities.

• Vitamix - A company with a 90-year history of promoting health and vitality by blending. Vitamix has donated blenders to our FoodFight schools along with money to support the FoodFight program. We will working together on a variety of projects.

• Rodale - Rodale's mission of inspiring and enabling people to improve their lives and the world around them is accomplished by publishing cutting-edge books and magazines promoting health and wellness. They have provided our teachers and students with a compendium of books detailing strategies for improving diet.

• Chefs Moves to Schools - A lynchpin of Michelle Obama's Let's Move! campaign, Chefs Moves to Schools has generously donated All Clad cooking kits to be used in all of our schools.

• Natural Gourmet - A leader in health-supportive culinary arts and theory, the NGI has graciously donated money to support FoodFight. We will be bringing Natural Gourmet chefs into FoodFight schools to support our teachers.

All this could not and would not have happened without your support. We are working hard to move to the next stage of development and would appreciate any support you could offer to move this initiative forward.
Please stay tuned for announcements about our fall benefit.

Happy summer!
Carolyn and Deb