SENATE MEMORIAL 9

50th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - second session, 2012

INTRODUCED BY

Pete Campos

A MEMORIAL

DECLARING JANUARY 24, 2012 "FOODCORPS AND AMERICORPS DAY" AT THE SENATE.

     WHEREAS, limited access to good, nutritious food has become a barrier to health, resulting in a combined percentage of overweight or obese children that includes thirty and three-tenths percent of kindergarten students and thirty-eight and seven-tenths percent of third grade students in New Mexico; and

     WHEREAS, one-third of New Mexico's thirty-three counties have been designated as having limited food access, with rural families traveling up to one hundred forty miles round-trip to reach a grocery store; and

     WHEREAS, this detriment to the health of New Mexico's children serves as a call to action, and residents have stepped up to meet this challenge through the national service program AmeriCorps and its newest grant recipient, FoodCorps; and

     WHEREAS, FoodCorps aims to produce a measurably healthier school food environment and serves as a resource to researchers across the school food field in an effort to combat childhood obesity; and

     WHEREAS, FoodCorps service members work to improve nutrition education, engagement with gardens and access to healthy food in order to achieve the larger goal established by First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move initiative to reduce national childhood obesity rates to below five percent by 2030; and

     WHEREAS, to achieve this goal, in its inaugural year, FoodCorps has built or expanded one hundred thirty-seven garden projects, donated over four thousand pounds of garden produce, engaged two hundred forty-five new community volunteers and reached twenty-five thousand eight hundred fifty-six school children in New Mexico and across the United States;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that January 24, 2012 be declared "FoodCorps and AmeriCorps Day" at the senate and that residents be urged to thank FoodCorps and AmeriCorps members for their service and to find ways to improve children's health through increased food access in New Mexico; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the executive directors of FoodCorps and AmeriCorps.

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