TELL YOUR STORY!

BY JAMIE WILSON, 2022-2023 SNA-WI LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR

2015 was the first fall that I was in the Food Service Director role and I had an opportunity to give the State Superintendent, Tony Evers, a tour through our high school cafeteria and tell him about our child nutrition programs. As a new director, I was really nervous and didn't know what to say, but I wanted him to know how important our programs are to the day-to-day success of our students. In our 10-15 minute conversation I learned some things about him. As expected, Mr. Evers has a passion for education and shared with me that he enjoyed his time as a principal in the Tomah area. He asked what my background was and I shared that I grew up in Superior and had worked in food service for a very long time, but was relatively new to school nutrition. Mr. Evers listened as I shared that our district hovers right around a 50% free and reduced meal benefit population and that we have a successful program where 65%-70% of our students eat lunch with us each day. I continued our conversation by telling him about our free after school meals at our high school and middle school and shared that we are able to provide Universal Free Breakfast at all 8 of our schools. I relayed to him the story of Monday mornings that some of our students at the high school and middle school will arrive early and wait for breakfast to be served. The students are excited for hot food, fresh fruits and juices and on more than one occasion students have told staff that they don't get breakfast at home over the weekend or that they don't have enough food to eat when they are home. Some of our students come to school hungry and look forward to Monday morning breakfast at school. I'm sure this is no surprise to you, but the State Superintendent had not heard this before. At the end of our meeting I thanked Mr. Evers for his time and didn't think much more about the stories that I shared with him.

Fast forward to Sept 2022 and we were lucky enough to have the now Governor Tony Evers visit one of our elementary schools. Now if you have had the opportunity to have someone of the Governor's caliber to visit your schools, you know that these visits can be somewhat chaotic and kind of a whirlwind. There are lots of people traveling with him and just as many people on the district side who want a chance to chat with his team. The elementary school food service team started serving lunch to 3rd and 4th graders when Governor Evers arrived at the other end of our large cafeteria. I headed out of the kitchen to try and buy some time until our students got through the serving line and we could get him into the kitchen to talk with our food service team. Structured chaos ensued as his team was walking through the cafeteria, students are at a stand still in the serving line because they hear that this is the Governor continued on page 45 and the cafeteria is clamoring over the same topic. As I reintroduce myself to Mr Evers, he politely interrupts me and says, “Weren't you here the last time I came through Superior? You told me the story of how some of your high school students would wait on Monday morning for the cafeteria doors to open because they didn't have enough food to eat at home. I have been telling that story all over the state since you told me that.” His staff responded saying that they hear him tell the story all the time. I told him that it really meant a lot that he remembered that story and that he shared it with me. I then thanked him for supporting our child nutrition programs and for earmarking more funds for that very same breakfast program in his proposal for the upcoming budget year. All and all it was another great 10-15 minutes spent with him in our kitchen. We had a chance to talk some more while he and the current State Superintendent, Jill Underly, helped us serve chicken and waffles to the rest of our elementary students.

A couple of weeks after the Governor visited our district, I was on a virtual Healthy School Meals for all Coalition Meeting. Just like the title implies, this group advocates for how to make free meals part of every kid's day at school. One of Governor Evers' staff was bringing us up to speed on the proposed budget for the next 2 years and while he was explaining about one of the proposals to provide more funding for school meals, he told my story, again about kids coming to school on Mondays waiting for the cafeteria to open. What I am trying to get across is that you should never assume your conversations with local and state officials don't make an impact. Share your stories about the positive impact school meals have on your students.

Want to have the opportunity to tell your state political leaders your story and promote Healthy School Meals for All students? Click this link for more info and watch your SNA emails for more information about our Spring Virtual Advocacy Day where we can help you craft your story.

JAMIE WILSON LEGISLATIVE COMMITTEE CHAIR | JAMIE.WILSON@SUPERIOR.K12.WI.US