Our partners at Slow Food USA have just launched an exciting new initiative. It’s called Time for Lunch, and it’s an effort to help get real food in the public school cafeterias all across the United States. We’ll be working with them on this campaign, and will continue to collaborate all the way through October 24. To learn more about how 350 is making the link to climate change and food, check out our Food and Farm page. Read on for more info about Time for Lunch:

Remember this date: September 7, 2009. We’ll look back on that day as the moment when people across America took a stand about the food our children eat at school.

Children who grow up enjoying food that is both delicious and good for them learn healthy eating habits that last throughout their lives. Those habits can start at school⎯but only if we give schools the resources to serve real food instead of the overly processed fast food that endangers children’s health.

To make that happen, our leaders in Congress need to hear that when it comes to our children and the legacy we’re leaving them, change can’t wait.

That’s why we’re organizing a National Eat-In for Labor Day, Sept. 7, 2009. On that day, people in communities across America will gather with their neighbors for public potlucks that send a clear message to our nation’s leaders: It’s time to provide America’s children with real food at school.

To get the whole country to share a meal together, we’re going to need the help of all kinds of people: parents, teachers, community leaders, kids and people who’ve never done anything like this before. We’re going to need everyone to pitch in.

Click here to get started. 

The Time for Lunch website will guide you through the process of contacting your legislators and organizing an Eat-In. We’ll give you everything you need to get involved.

In return, we’re asking for your creativity and your commitment. We’re asking for it right now—because with the President calling for health care reform and the First Lady planting a garden on the White House Lawn, we’ve got an opening to pass legislation that gives kids the opportunity to grow up healthy.

This fall, Congress will be debating whether to update the Child Nutrition Act, which is the law that determines what kind of food kids eat at school. By giving schools the resources to serve real food, we can make sure that the legacy we’re leaving our children is a future filled with opportunity, security and good health.

We can only do it if we act now. It’s time to get real food into schools.