Earlier this month, the agriculture appropriations committees in both chambers of Congress agreed to spend an additional $13 billion this year on nutrition programs. Exactly how much of that money will go toward incorporating fresh fruits and whole grains into rotation at school lunch lines across the country remains to be seen. As we noted back in April, the effort to increase nutrition spending has been a bumpy one, with Illinois' own Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D-Crete) playing a pivotal role in defending a $1 billion agribusiness industry giveaway that President Obama had hoped to redirect to school cafeterias.

Today, cafeteria workers from across the country -- including nine from Illinois -- are on Capitol Hill lobbying members of Congress on the issue.  Their timing is key, as Congress is scheduled to take up the reauthorization of the Child Nutrition Program this fall. Here's exactly what they are pushing lawmakers to do, via a press release from Service Workers United (a joint project of SEIU and UNITE-HERE, which represents the workers):

- Increase federal reimbursement rates for meals to enable schools to cover the rising costs of meeting dietary guidelines and to purchase fresh, healthy foods.

- Reach more struggling families by relaxing eligibility requirements, streamlining application processes, and allowing for regional variations in cost of living in determining eligibility.

- Improve food safety, nutrition, health and wellness, and customer service through additional training and good jobs with health care for food service employees.

The issue of low reimbursement rates is particularly damaging. The School Nutrition Association points out that, in order to meet the current dietary requirements, schools have to spend "about $2.92," while only receiving "$2.52 to $2.77" from the federal government. The group estimates that school districts are collectively spending $4.5 million each day as they serve 30 million school lunches.

The result, according to Homewood-Flossmoor High School food-service worker Grace Hill, is that junk foods dominate the free menu. High-quality offerings are only available for students who can afford to pay. "The food service companies seem more interested in making money than in serving kids healthy food. The free lunch program serves pizza, fries, and a drink," Hill said in a statement. "But the healthy food costs too much for a lot of families.”

The economic downturn has only punctuated the importance of school meal programs. Last year,  a record 20 million subsidized school lunches were served each day. Here in Illinois, Service Workers United estimates that more than 660,000 free or reduced-price meals were served up in 2008 alone. Also troubling are the thousands of additional children who live slightly above the poverty line and therefore only qualify for reduced-price lunches.  Many of those kids still can't afford the lunches, according to Tracey Jones, a food service employee at an elementary school in south suburban Dolton, where unemployment recently hit 13.9 percent. “A lot of these kids are not getting breakfast in the morning and coming to school hungry,” she said in a statement. “I’m looking at the child’s face and thinking ‘I can’t feed you.’ But how can I not help a hungry child?”

This is where the push to "relax eligibility requirements" comes in. Hopefully, members of Illinois congressional delegation will get the message today.

UPDATE (6/16): SEIU has released a video featuring Illinois food service worker Marlon Taylor talking about his job and his trip to Capitol Hill:

Full disclosure: Progress Illinois is sponsored by the SEIU Illinois State Council.

Image used under a Creative Commons license by Flickr user florathexplora.