Last summer, a twelve year old approached me at a farmers’ market. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to a vegetable I was cutting up. “That?? That’s a tomato.” I answered, astounded that someone could not recognize such a common vegetable. Don’t know what a rutabaga looks like? Fine, not everyone does, but a tomato? It really hit me just how distant many people are from their food and where it comes from.

I got up one morning not too long ago and put on my lucky green pants (my mom got them as part of an entire polyester green suit in the 70’s) and a nice button down Food Project shirt, and headed to the Massachusetts State House to support testimony on school nutrition. Kathleen and I were giving oral testimony to support House Bill 1102, brought forth by Representative Kay Khan of Newton to make school districts develop nutritional policies for students. In the last two Saturdays, we worked with Pete and Stephanie, two interns, to write letters of support, and since they could not miss school to attend the hearing, Kathleen and I were going today, armed with well- written letters of support, to give testimony on their behalf.

Kathleen and I met in front of the statehouse, went through security, and found our way to a hearing room, which slowly filled up to about 40 people. We signed up to speak about bill 1102 and then the hearing opened. It was a hearing for the Joint Committee on Children and Families, so it was chaired by a representative on the house and a member of the senate. The hearing allowed citizens to comment on a series of about 20 bills. The first 15 bills were about mental health, so Kathleen and I had an opportunity to hear about the fight for equal pay for direct care workers working for public and private entities. Finally around 1:30 (when I was seriously concerned about not only the abominable state of school nutrition, but also the abominable state of my own nutrition), we got to speak.

Kathleen and I each read the letters that our interns wrote, and I had a chance to talk about the importance of school gardens after working with school partnerships, where we have 4 classes of 3rd graders come to our urban farm and kitchen as part of their science curriculum. I spoke about the girl at the farmers’ market who could not recognize a tomato, and how through school partnerships, we have 65 third graders who get to harvest, cook and eat tomatoes that they have watched grow.

It was a great moment — to have legislators listen to why we do what we do. But our challenge is great: Kathleen and I were the only two people to testify in support of school nutrition. I hope that in the future I will be there waiting in an even longer line of people willing to speak passionately to why we need school gardens, physical education, and nutrition classes in schools — or, even better, a line of people who have had those opportunities and can speak to how influential and essential they have been.