Global Child Nutrition Foundation Gala To Recognize Achievements In International School Feeding

Main Category: Nutrition / Diet
Also Included In: Pediatrics / Children's Health
Article Date: 28 Feb 2008 - 4:00 PST

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The Global Child Nutrition Foundation's 5th annual A Possible Dream Gala will take place Tuesday, March 4, 2008, and honor several champions of child nutrition, including the 2008 recipient of the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award. The gala supports the Foundation's mission to raise awareness about the global epidemic of child hunger and the school feeding programs that are stopping its spread. Events begin at 7:00 pm at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC

All proceeds from the gala benefit the Global Child Nutrition Foundation (GCNF), an organization striving to ensure that children worldwide have a better future through effective and sustainable school feeding programs.

Edward Cooney, Executive Director of the Congressional Hunger Center, is this year's recipient of the Gene White Lifetime Achievement Award. Mr. Cooney has spent his professional career dedicated to the cause of feeding hungry children. At the Congressional Hunger Center, a nonprofit anti-hunger training organization which exemplifies a bipartisan approach to ending hunger, Mr. Cooney oversees the Bill Emerson National Hunger Fellows Program which provides year-long leadership development for emerging leaders in the fight against hunger in the United States. He also oversees the Mickey Leland International Hunger Fellows Program which sends talented US citizens to the world's poorest countries to continue the fight against hunger.

Previous gala honorees have included former Senator George McGovern, former Senator Robert Dole and Catherine Bertini, former executive director of the U.N. World Food Program. The award is named for GCNF founder and board president Gene White, an extraordinary woman who dedicates her life to children and the benefits that good nutrition can provide them.

Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture and current Motion Picture Association of American chairman and CEO Dan Glickman will serve as master of ceremonies for the event. Several members of Congress are also expected to attend as is Emmanuel Ohene Afoakwa, a professor at the University of Ghana and a leader in international school feeding program development.

"The A Possible Dream Gala is a wonderful event that showcases the efforts made by child nutrition advocates and the school nutrition community, " said GCNF Board member and past School Nutrition Association President Janey Thornton, Ph.D, SNS. "Through the gala, we can raise awareness about the necessity of international school feeding programs to provide children in developing countries with good nutrition and an education."

The Global Child Nutrition Foundation is a nonprofit corporation whose mission and vision are to help the nations of the world nurture young bodies and advance young minds through the time-tested practice of school-based nutrition. The School Nutrition Association is a national, non-profit professional organization representing more than 55,000 members who provide high-quality, low-cost meals to students across the United States.

School Nutrition Association