To Whom It May Concern, November 16, 2009

We are writing as a group of students in a sociology class at Wartburg College. In this class, we are focusing on communities and our group is specifically working with the local schools. Our class goal is to increase public awareness of the detrimental effects of nut allergies and bring the political and educational front to advocate change to make school lunch programs safer for all children. We feel that this issue is of great importance because the number of children being born with nut allergies is increasing. This directly affects our community because there are children in this school district with nut allergies who may be exposed to nuts in their school hot lunch programs.

As a class, we decided to advocate for individuals with nut allergies because it is the most common cause of food related death in America. There are more than three million people in the United States who have nut allergies, a number that is dramatically increasing. Our goal is to encourage the Waverly-Shell Rock and Janesville schools to move to a nut-free hot lunch program. By doing this, children who are affected by nut allergies would be able to be more dependable on the school lunch program. Children and parents will still need to take precautions, as we are not asking that the entire school be nut-free. However, allowing children with nut allergies to rely on a nut-free hot lunch program will greatly increase their safety and greatly decrease parent’s concern.

Many people argue that children and parents need to be their own advocate and take on their own responsibility for their allergy. We strongly agree with the idea that children and parents need to have a good understanding of the condition and take precautions. However, we feel that it is unreasonable to put the health and safety in the hands of a young child. We feel that the school’s hot lunch programs should be responsible for providing a safe meal for each child with a nut allergy. This would require a nut-free hot lunch program to ensure that there is not any cross contamination.

We would appreciate your understanding and support for our cause. We will be holding an open forum at the Waverly Public Library on Monday, November 16th. At 6:30pm we will provide nut-free food samples in the ICN room and at 7:00pm the open forum will begin in the Bremer room. We invite you to attend this forum to discuss our goals and progress. In the mean time, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns feel free to contact us through our professor, Jessica Herrmeyer, whose email is jessica.herrmeyer@wartburg.edu and telephone number is 319-352-8389. You may also visit our blog online at www.nutfreehotlunch.blogspot.com. Thank you for your time and understanding.

Best regards,
Education Group
Communities Class
Wartburg College

The Forum is almost here!

Hi Everyone!

Our class has been busy working on the forum. Jobs have been given out and everyone is doing their part to make it a success. We want to educate the public about the realities of nut allergies.

Those letters made it out to the community. The school group also passed out invites to our forum last week in all the schools in Waverly, Shell Rock, and Janesville. We are hoping for a big turn out! We also presented on our online networks. Those were neat and interesting!

Again, the Open Forum is on Monday, November 16, 2009, at the Waverly Public Library. The library is on West Bremer Avenue. We will start with nut-free samples at 6:30pm and the presentation will start at 7:00pm. We hope to see everyone there!

Thanks for your support!