Nice to see celebrity chefs like Rachael Ray and Tom Colicchio using their star power to do some good. (Except that Colicchio is basically the Superman of food causes, so we’ll let him lead the way.)
The New York Daily News reports that an advocacy group, Lunch 4 Learning, has received the backing from notable names in the food industry, like Ray, Colicchio, Dan Kluger of ABC Kitchen and Johnathan Adler of Franny’s. The group hopes to get funding to give all 1.1 million public school children a free school lunch, banishing the shame and fraught that families face. Said Ray in an interview with the New York Daily News, “You’re taking away that stigma of the poor and making it a level playing field for everybody, and that’s supposed to be the promise of the de Blasio administration … Well, this is a great way for him to put his money where his mouth is.”
Grubstreet reports that some pre-written #lunch4learning hashtags are creeping up in Colicchio and Ray’s Twitter feeds, and the group is aiming to get big names like Guy Fieri involved. (The cynic in us says please, Fieri, don’t feed any children what you put in your restaurants.) The real question is whether such a measure could ever get passed; a Department of Education spokesperson told the Daily News that Mayor de Blasio was hesitant about free school lunches because federal funding is based on the percentages of children who receive free school lunches. And hey, here’s a grand idea: let’s make school lunches edible, while we’re at it.
[New York Daily News; Grubstreet]
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