washington

I had the pleasure of celebrating the top notch achievement of the Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom Public Charter School as USDA Under Secretary Kevin Concannon and District of Columbia State Superintendent of Education Hosanna Mahaley presented this great school with a HealthierUS School Challenge Gold Award of Distinction.  The award represents the highest honor a school can achieve in the Challenge and they couldn’t have done it without the committed leadership and staff at this special school.  This school is truly a role model and the award puts them on the map as the first school in the nation’s capital to earn the Gold Award of Distinction.  E.W. Stokes is a diverse pre-school and elementary school providing instruction in two languages.  Their unwavering commitment to sharing the benefits of physical activity and making good food choices is evident in everything they do!

It’s a movement that began in 2009 with a jackhammer and the desire to transform the land surrounding USDA Headquarters into a healthier, more sustainable landscape. Immediately support for such an effort poured in and the first People’s Garden was built here in Washington, DC. A few months’ later employees outside the Capital Beltway received a challenge from Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack encouraging them to be involved in these efforts and create similar gardens at their USDA facility or within the community where they work. A movement that started with one garden was about to spread its roots and it did just that in 2010.

[Note: the following is an excerpt from an article that originally appeared in the November/December issue of Rural Cooperatives, a magazine published by USDA Rural Development]

Puget Sound Meat Producers Cooperative has been operating for just over a year, with a roll of 60 voting members in nine contiguous counties, and another 30 associate members.

Earlier today, I joined Deputy Agriculture Secretary Kathleen Merrigan and other top USDA officials here at the Agriculture Department for the Second USDA Tribal Leaders Listening Session.  The leaders are in Washington for tomorrow’s White House Conference, called by President Obama because he is very serious about the need for the federal government to honor and respect our trust responsibilities to Native communities.

During an invocation at the start of today’s event, Dr. Ted Mala, physician and director of tribal relations at the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage said that the USDA “takes care of our weakest people, rural people, who cannot be here today…give them strength.”

Do you have any idea how many ornaments it takes to decorate a 67-foot-tall Christmas tree? Do you ever count your ornaments? For this year’s Capitol Christmas Tree Wyoming did.

As Deputy Administrator for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), I was honored to join our partner, the National Council of La Raza (NCLR), community leaders, families and a representative from the First Lady’s Let’s Move! initiative at a press briefing to promote promising practices and policies that can help turn the tide on child hunger and obesity and improve access to nutritious foods for Hispanic children and their families.  The press briefing took place the day after USDA’s release of the 2009 Household Food Security Report in the United States.   NCLR’s press conference was an effort to draw attention to the fastest growing and youngest population across the United States who have difficulty putting healthy meals on the table, due to inadequate access to nutritious food.  Hispanic children are among those at greatest risk for overweight and obesity and, at the same time, are the most likely to be living with hunger.  Both obesity and hunger have serious implications for children’s health and well-being -- all of which are  priorities of the Obama administration.

Cross-posted from the Let's Move! Blog:

Question:

What are those giant clear caterpillar looking things in the White House garden?

Answer:

They are high tunnels and they are another step in increasing the ability of farmers and gardeners around the nation to grow and provide healthy nutritious fruits and vegetables throughout the year.

It isn’t part of the agency’s mission statement to make childhood dreams come true – but it became our privilege today at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC. U.S. Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell had the honor of making a childhood dream come true for actress Betty White.

Cross-posted from the Let's Move! blog.

In the ongoing fight against childhood obesity, First Lady Michelle Obama started the Let’s Move! campaign to help children be more physically fit and conscious of the food they eat. To help promote this initiative, employees from USDA and other federal agencies recently teamed up with the local non-profit Horton’s Kids, an organization recognized for its programs aiming to improve the lives of Washington D.C. kids.

As the nation’s capitol geared up for Halloween and midterm elections, the USDA Food Safety Discovery Zone (FSDZ) was equally busy at the end of October spreading its Be Food Safe messages to Washington, D.C. residents and tourists. In just one week, the FSDZ hosted a Food Safety Education Camp on Gallaudet University’s campus for students from Kendall Demonstration Elementary School and Maryland School for the Deaf, followed by an exhibit at the 2010 Marine Corps Marathon Health and Fitness Expo by GE, where over 100,000 health-conscious participants were ready to learn illness prevention measures.