The U.S. Department of Education will host the national finals for eight teams of high school culinary students who are competing in the preparation of healthy, tasty and creative school lunches on Monday, June 10, at the department’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C.
The teams, which became finalists by winning local qualifying contests, are from Chicago, Denver, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Memphis, Orange County, Calif., St. Louis, and Winston-Salem, N.C. The competition, called Cooking Up Change®, is sponsored by the Healthy Schools Campaign, a non-profit organization based in Chicago. The contest is part of its effort to empower students to have a voice in the national conversation about the need for healthy and tasty school food.
Brenda Dann-Messier, assistant secretary for Vocational and Adult Education, will serve as a judge on the panel, along with several others from the culinary world and the fields of nutrition, education, and government. (see list of judges here).