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Compared to most other New Yorkers, Northern Manhattan residents suffer disproportionately from the impacts of environmental pollution. To help alleviate this disparity, WE ACT has partnered with the Center for Environmental Health in Northern Manhattan (CEHNM) as a member of the Center's Community Outreach Education Core. The mission of CEHNM is to understand and prevent the environmental components of diseases. The Center members concentrate their efforts on three disease categories: neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, essential tremor and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); respiratory diseases, including asthma and emphysema; and environmentally related cancer. Members of the Community Outreach Education Core are tasked with disseminating the Center's findings to community residents. WE ACT takes the work a step further by using Center findings to galvanize residents into advocacy work designed to improve public policy around environmental health.

Ongoing work includes basic laboratory studies of disease mechanisms and epidemiologic studies of exposed populations. WE ACT and CEHNM are seeking to understand the effects of both environmental exposures and genetic susceptibility.

Northern Manhattan has some of the highest childhood asthma hospitalization rates in the nation. Incidences of obesity, low birth weight, and other respiratory illnesses among children are also disproportionately high in this community. WE ACT has a long-standing partnership with the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health(CCCEH), with whom we work as part of the Community Outreach and Translation Core (COTC) to improve the environmental health of children in low-income, urban communities of color. The COTC communicates the Center’s research results to local residents, community organizations, health care providers, public interest groups, and policymakers so they can take action to protect children from the threats of air pollutants and other endocrine disrupting chemicals.

Pizza. Mozzarella sticks. Hamburgers. French fries. Fish sticks.

This isn’t a fast food menu. These are all items that are on a New York City public school lunch menu. Why are school meals like fast food combos meals that occasionally meet nutrition standards? Why do some schools have better food options than others? Why doesn’t school food ever have enough funding?

It has been the policy of the United States to stigmatize poor students of color by serving them the cheapest, most ultra-processed, poorly tasting food in public schools. The combination of lack of funding to even allow school food authorities to cover all their costs, separating students into different categories to determine their eligibility for a school meal, and dumping unhealthy ultra-processed foods onto student lunch trays amounts to structural racism in the school food system. Indeed, when Congress first introduced the bill 1963, the southern conservative chairs of the senate and house agricultural appropriations committees worked to prevent “farm money” from funding largely urban black student populations.

What do we mean by structural racism? We adopt the Center for Social Inclusion’s definition as the accumulation of practices and policies that collectively deny people of color adequate resources and equal opportunities to thrive . With 80% of New York City’s student population being Black and Latino, and 75% percent of students eligible for free or reduced school meals, there is no doubt that the quality, nutrition, and safety of school meals impacts low-income students of color more than whites in New York City.

Just as there are government policies to dump polluting facilities on communities of color and low-income, so too there are policies that flood these communities with ultra-processed foods. And just as polluting facilities contribute to asthma, so too do unhealthy school foods contribute to childhood obesity. You don’t need a trained policy eye to read between the lines of law to see this. All you need to do is look at a school lunch in Harlem.

Goal

The goal of WE ACT’s Food Justice Initiative is for Northern Manhattan schools to have access to good food. WE ACT defines "good food" as safe, fresh, and nutritious school meals that are prepared in schools in a quality environment, that kids eat and parents support, to contribute to the reduction of childhood obesity.

 Organizing

WE ACT works towards this goal by organizing parents through our Food Justice Training. Our Food Justice Training consists of three workshops and aims to build a vision of what parents want for school food, educating them about the school food system, and conducting a power analysis of the school food system to understand what power we need to leverage to achieve their vision.

WE ACT currently conducts workshops at MS 328 and MS 326 in Washington Heights, Central Park East II and PS 171 in East Harlem, and PS 161 in West Harlem. In 2011, we organized 6 parents from our trainings to attend and deliver testimony at the New York City Council hearing on New York City Department of Education’s food procurement and policies.

Research

WE ACT conducts and coordinates research to inform our food justice trainings, organizing, advocacy and policy. We are currently conducting research on the corporate supply chain of school foods and their ingredients. Through this research, we seek to understand where New York City school food comes from, where it is manufactured, who manufacturers it, who owns the system, and what’s in it. One of the results of this research thus far has been an uncovering of the ingredients of the foods purchased by the New York City Department of Education.

Advocacy

WE ACT has advocated for bringing supermarkets back to Harlem, increasing federal funding for school food programs, procuring transparency and accountability within the New York City Office of SchoolFood about the ingredients in their products, and more. Most recently, WE ACT has advocated in support of New York City Council Intro 452-2011, which would encourage New York City agencies to purchase New York State grown food.

Policy

WE ACT is calling for the Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education to use geographic preference as a specification in their requests for bids to and contracts with food service manufacturers and distributors.Article 52-A 2590 of New York State Education law gives the Chancellor the authority to develop a procurement policy for the city school district of the city of New York and the districts and public schools therein.” Such policy must include: “(a) standards for quality, function and utility of all material goods, supplies and services purchased by the chancellor, superintendents, or schools” and “(b) regulations for the purchase of material goods, supplies and services by the chancellor, the superintendents, and the schools, including clearly articulated procedures which require a clear statement of product specifications.” Federal and state law allows school food authorities to use geographic preference in their food contracts, and according to recent USDA procurement policy memo, product specifications can be as detailed as the school food authority requiring that an apple must have been picked within one day of delivery, or must have been harvested within a certain time period.

Food Justice Resources

**NEW** 

Crain's New York Business Article: NYC Schools Get Applesauce from China

Manhattan Times Green Times Article: 10 Ways to Improve New York City's Food System

East and Central Harlem District Public Health Office Eating Well in Harlem: How Available is Healthy Food

NYC Department of Planning: Going to Market: New York City's Neighborhod Grocery Store and Supermarket Shortage

Mount Sinai Hospital: Race and the Food Store Availability in an Inner-City Neighbourhood

Journal of Preventing Chronic Disease: The Role of Race and Poverty in Access to Foods that Enable Individuals to Adhere to Dietary Guidelines

NYC Department of Health: Childhood Obesity in New York City Elementary Students

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation:Improving Child Nutrition Policy: Insights from National USDA Study of School Food Environments

Anti-Racism Practice and the Work of Community Food Organizations

BULLETIN:  

New York City Block Access to Nutrition Data

Iowa Senator Calls for Higher Nutrition Standards in School Lunches

Ohio Lawmakers Introduce Junk Food Ban

North Carolina School Posts Calorie Information on Digital Cafeteria Menu Boards

Healthier Lunches Modestly Reduce South Carolina Childhood Obesity Rate

The Our Housing is Our Health (OHOH) Campaign is a training and organizing initiative expanding the capacity of low-income communities of color in Northern Manhattan, and throughout New York City, to improve children’s environmental health. WE ACT’s OHOH Campaign has 3 primary goals:  

• To organize individuals and organizations around the health effects of harmful indoor exposures to exposures to susceptible groups such as children and those with respiratory problems, and train them on methods to minimize these exposures;
• To identify and pursue a needed change in housing policy or practice; and 
• To develop a citywide network of housing and health organizations that will share information and resources related to housing and children’s health and will mobilize their constituencies for policy change.

Since 2004, the OHOH Campaign has carried out numerous trainings and set up strong partnerships with Northern Manhattan parents, concerned community members and community-based organizations throughout NYC to address housing health issues to improve children’s health. In 2006, addressing a specific environmental exposure identified by the community, WE ACT tackled the problem of mold in New York City’s low-income housing through the implementation of the “Mold is Taking Hold” initiative of the OHOH Campaign. In December 2006, in collaboration with WE ACT, the Office of the New York City Public Advocate issued the report Unhealthy Exposure: Mold in New York City Homes (PDF). The study confirmed that reports of mold contamination – a severe asthma trigger – have been rising in New York City for the past five years and made concrete suggestions for addressing the growing problem, especially important in communities like Central Harlem where 1 in 4 children suffers from asthma (a rate far above the national average). Most recently, through collaborative advocacy, the OHOH Campaign succeeded in improving New York City policy on toxic mold, better protecting

As the Mayor and City agencies develop plans to build and preserve 165,000 units of affordable housing by 2013 to address New York City’s affordable housing crisis, it is crucial that these plans focus not only on availability of affordable housing but on ensuring healthy living conditions for low-income residents and their children. With a strong network of allies and scientific evidence provided through our partnership with the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH), WE ACT is in a key position to address housing quality and its impact on children’s health.  

Read about The Northern Manhattan Garbage, Pests & Pesticides Campaign, an initiative born of the OHOH Campaign.

Mold is Taking Hold:

Mold Fact Sheet (PDF)

Mold - Health Effects (PDF)

Mold - Legal Rights (PDF)

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