PARTICIPANT MEDIA’S SOCIAL ACTION CAMPAIGN FOR FOOD, INC. SENDS HEALTHY SCHOOL FOOD BRIGADE TO CAPITOL HILL

As part of Participant Media’s social action campaign for the acclaimed new documentary, Food, Inc., parents and children from nearly 30 states proclaiming themselves the Healthy School Food Brigade converged on Capitol Hill Wednesday to urge passage of legislation that would update and reauthorize 30 year old school food nutrition standards. The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act would get junk foods out of our nation’s schools and help assure that our children have healthy food choices.
 
Among the 130 citizens who traveled to Washington for a White House briefing, press conference and meetings with 120 members of Congress were actresses Deidre Hall (Days of Our Lives) and Andrea Bowen (Desperate Housewives), Natalie Rogers, representing the Georgia Parent Teachers Association, and food safety activist Barbara Kowalcyk, who appears in the film. John Schreiber, Participant’s EVP of Social Action & Advocacy, welcomed the group and presented a petition to the White House signed by more than 50,000 Americans calling for improved school nutrition.
 
Schreiber said, “This was a very exciting and productive day for everyone involved. Thanks to the efforts of the Healthy School Food Brigade, we were able to send a very clear message to our nation’s policymakers that Americans from across the country care about the kinds of food we want served to our kids in their schools.” Schreiber continued, “By leveraging the current success of Food, Inc., we were able to raise the visibility of the important work our NGO partners are doing to protect the future health of America’s children”.
 
Elected officials who attended the press conference included the bill’s sponsors, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Rep. Lynn Woolsey (D- California), and co-sponsors, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) and Rep. Rosa DiLauro (D-Connecticut). Among those meeting with the Brigade were Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, Tina Tchen, Director of Office of Public Engagement, Jocelyn Frye, Policy Director, Office of the First Lady and David Lazarus, Senior Advisor, Secretary of Agriculture.
 
The Child Nutrition Promotion and School Lunch Protection Act is supported by the National Parent Teacher Association and 88 other major family, school and medical associations groups.

In Food, Inc., now playing in selected cities in the U.S. and Canada, filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that's been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA.

Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of e coli--the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults.

Featuring Eric Schlosser (Fast Food Nation), Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma) along with forward thinking social entrepreneurs like Stonyfield Farm's Gary Hirshberg and Polyface Farms' Joel Salatin, Food, Inc. reveals surprising -- and often shocking truths -- about what we eat, how it's produced, who we have become as a nation and where we are going from here.

Participant Media is a Los Angeles-based entertainment company that focuses on socially relevant, commercially viable feature films, documentaries and television, as well as publishing and digital media.  Participant Media is headed by CEO Jim Berk and was founded in 2004 by philanthropist Jeff Skoll, who serves as Chairman. Ricky Strauss is President.
 
Participant exists to tell compelling, entertaining stories that bring to the forefront real issues that shape our lives.  For each of its projects, Participant creates extensive social action and advocacy programs which provide ideas and tools to transform the impact of the media experience into individual and community action. Participant’s films include The Kite Runner, Charlie Wilson’s War, Darfur Now, An Inconvenient Truth, Good Night and Good Luck., Syriana, Standard Operating Procedure, The Visitor, The Soloist and Food, Inc.