Brighter Bites Takes Washington!
Last month members of the Brighter Bites leadership team and Rich Dachman, Sysco’s Vice President of Produce and a Brighter Bites Board Member, traveled to Washington, D.C. for high-level meetings at the United States Department of Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives, and U.S. Senate. Founder Lisa Helfman and Rich Dachman had also been invited to participate in a panel on scaling grassroots programs through partnerships that week at the Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) Building a Healthier Future Summit. Serendipitous meetings took place on the conference margins with leaders from PHA, Produce Marketing Association (PMA), Marathon Kids, JCC of America, The Food Trust, and other key organizations working to increase access to healthy food and physical activity.
Partnerships were the theme of the week and PHA set the tone with celebrity endorsements of fruit and vegetable consumption (FNV) and a humorous approach to drinking more water as they collaborate with Brita on Nalgene giveaways and others in the Drink Up campaign. The two-day Summit focused on building partnerships across sectors to make the healthy choice the easy choice.
Lisa and Rich, representing Brighter Bites and Sysco, joined Marathon Kids Executive Director Christine Pollei and Nike Senior Director of North America Community Impact Caitlin Morris for a panel discussion on Growing the Grassroots: Scaling Through Partnership. Ladan Manteghi, Executive Director of the Global Social Enterprise Initiative at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, moderated a lively discussion about how these for-profit and nonprofit businesses are working together toward building healthier futures.
Lisa and Rich’s comments focused on Brighter Bites and Sysco’s shared mission to deliver fresh food directly to those who need it. Rich highlighted his admiration for Brighter Bites “figuring out how to get food down the last mile to kids” and his wish to “help Brighter Bites so we can reach kids throughout the country.” Lisa’s key messages focused on her own individual and organizational growth experience that developed out of the knowledge she gained from conversations and partnerships with experts in the field. Lisa and Rich’s panel discussion with Marathon Kids and Nike was highly attended and resulted in lively follow up discussions and requests for meetings.
The summit’s closing plenary featured PHA Honorary Chair and First Lady Michelle Obama whose presence so close to our table and speech was one of the most thrilling moments of the week, after our White House tour. The First Lady focused her comments on her support for the new FDA-approved nutrition facts label she had revealed at a press conference earlier that morning, the people in the room working toward creating a healthier future, and remembering to always put our children first. These were fitting words for the Brighter Bites team and our partners who work to create healthy communities through fresh food every day.
