 Well, it's great to be back home And it's also great to be here tonight, and thank you Harriet Thank You Janice. Thank you the NEA foundation Feel very honored, but I accept this award for all of the Folks that work with me. We have over a hundred employees now We started 18 years ago and move the longer continuum to really show that you can grow food inside Cities and close to where people live and create a sustainable food system, but it's not just that It's about really growing jobs and and making sure that we get healthy food tonight I'm gonna talk a little bit about what we're doing in terms of getting food into Schools into our public schools because we know that With just a little over two dollars a meal We can't get really good food into our into our bellies of our kids But what we've done in Milwaukee, I'll talk a little bit about we've been able to develop over the years a food system That we're able to work in partnership with Milwaukee public school system Cisco Which is a delivery system of foods into the public schools to be able to get our local food That we grow within a day day and a half of production and that's really important when we think about our food because We've sit here tonight and really had a good meal But we don't really think a lot about our food and where our food comes from and we know that our food system is broken we know that that One out of six Americans a day are hungry to go to bed every night hungry We know our kids get up in the morning and they go to school and many of those kids Don't even eat the free breakfast that they get in school because they come to school late many of our public school students, but they stop at the candy stores and they get candy and then they Really terrorize the teachers because they're all hyped up on on sugars But but but what we need to do is get back to the days Where we did have a local food system because I listened I was in a back listening to all the folks from the different states and in every state Back in the 30s and 40s our food came from those states But today our food is shipped 1500 miles away and by the time it gets into our bellies Especially our kids is depleted of about 50% of its nutrient impact So we need to get back to those days where food was grown closer to where we live We can't continue to survive on the system. We have today. We need to build a system. That's local That's what it's all about and that system will Make sure that our kids have the advantage of being able to learn get their maximum ability to learn if they have a if they go to school With a full belly many of our kids can't learn Research has proven that if kids go to school without eating They really don't reach their maximum learning ability So and we're all responsible for this because this is really about Social justice and food justice to make sure that everybody has access to the same food That's what it's really all about And it's just not in Wisconsin. It's in every state I visit every state in the nation and we have the same problem in our cities and we have these food deserts where we don't have healthy food and People don't have access and it's really about access So as we think about educating our kids, we need to think about Educating them about the food that they eat It makes it. It's really important that when we're talking about healthy food in the classroom That when we march those kids down to the cafeteria They're getting those things you're talking about if we're talking about one of the top five foods like kale or Blueberries and we take them to the cafeteria and we're not feeding in kale or blueberries. We really have a problem because kids don't understand that message and Like Alice Waters says it is possible to have a garden in every school in America because kids really need to learn About food because when kids learn about food, they take that message back home and Their parents learn from the kids and all of a sudden they start eating better because they have to start at home as well But we can do something about the food that we have in in schools. We have to change the policy We have this great opportunity with the farm bill Coming up to 2012 Farm Bill and we can speak speak out about Getting healthier food into our schools So what we're doing in Milwaukee this past year. We've been able to get a hundred thousand pounds of carrots into our public school systems over the last two years we've been able to get sprouts and Solid greens into our school system. So it's possible that we can do it and we can do it on a local level But it's all of our responsibility and make sure that happens because Everybody wants to live in these sustainable communities as I go around the country almost every city says they have this 2020 plan become Green and sustainable, but if we don't have a sustainable food system By 2020 you won't have that reach that goal So we really need to think about our food. It's the most important thing in our lives Our food it's the one thing that connects everybody in this room in this room Regardless of where you come from or who you are is that we all have to eat food to survive So why aren't we eating the best possible food and why aren't we getting the same food to all people? We've been able to do that in Milwaukee in a number of different ways I only have they only gave me five minutes a night. So I can't show you my thousand Image PowerPoint to show you how we do it, but but we've been able to do it We've been able to get that food via many Different delivery systems to everybody in our community. So it's possible So I hope you keep this on your mind when you leave here tonight To go back to your communities and really think about the food, especially the teachers That are here to make sure those kids are getting a good meal and we fight For getting better food in our schools. Thank you very much and this has been a great honor and