You can make a salad bar fun -- now, that’s something -- and delicious.  You can teach kids to cook something that tastes good and is good for them; and share your passion for food in a way that’s truly contagious¹（蔓延的，感染性的） .

Let me tell you something.  My mother didn’t know how to cook broccoli²（花椰菜，西兰花） .  It was watery³ and mushy（糊状的） , and that's what we thought broccoli was.  We thought you could eat it with a spoon and cut it with a knife.  (Laughter.)  And I know a lot of parents out there cooking broccoli like that.  It makes it hard to like broccoli if that’s how you’re cooking it.

But you guys can help change that.  That's why we created the “Chefs Move to Schools” program, to pair chefs like you with interested schools in your local communities.  And together, you’ll be helping⁴ students learn where food comes from, and develop healthy habits.  You’ll be elevating（提起，升高） the role of food in our schools, and working to create healthy meals on a budget.

Now, just like you wouldn’t be thrilled if someone came in your restaurant and told you what to do, we’re not asking you guys to go into school kitchens and take over.  And that's an important point to make.

Our school food service professionals who are out there, they have dedicated⁵ their careers to helping our children grow up healthy and happy.  They work long hours and they stretch budgets to the limit, often with no recognition at all.  And their advice has been so invaluable⁶（无价的） as we’ve tried to identify areas where schools can improve and become more efficient.  So they deserve our respect and our admiration⁷, and I want to take the time now to thank them for their service and for their -- (applause) -- for their hard work.

That’s why we’re asking you, when you go into the schools, to work closely with our food service professionals to support the work that they do every day, in and out, long hours.  They’re looking forward to getting some extra help -- they need it -- doing everything from teaching basic cooking skills in the cafeteria（自助餐厅） to encouraging healthy choices in the lunch line.  So they're going to need your support, but it’s got to be a collaboration⁸.  And we strongly encourage you all to go in with that spirit.

Now I know that none of this is going to be easy.  Nothing we do is.  I think the very nature of living in this house means that the Easy Button has been taken away forever.  (Laughter.)  And it won’t happen overnight.  That's for sure.  You’re going to need to figure out what you’re up against.  You’re going to need to take time to learn your communities, to understand your schools, to figure out how the school kitchen operates, to finding out what equipment is available -- because there are equipment limitations that have been an issue at some many schools -- and what kind of changes the school and the community can actually sustain（承担，维持） .  So it’s going -- there’s going to be a learning curve.  So you’ve got to be patient and help people become patient with you.

But making our schools healthier isn’t just about what happens in the kitchen.  As Norah said, it’s also about what kids learn in the classroom.  And that’s why we’re also encouraging you to do things like put on cooking demonstrations⁹; teach kids how to prepare meals at home.  You can help start a cooking club, work with the teacher to integrate（整合） food into the lesson plan, like they’ve done at Murch, or help students plant a garden, if possible.  All that stuff is a part of it.  It’s not just about the work in the kitchen.

And with your help, our hope is that we’ll be able to double the number of schools in the Healthier US School Challenge.  This is an innovative¹⁰ program that recognizes schools that are providing healthy foods and opportunities for kids to stay active.  So there are just so many ways to get involved.  And I know that many of you are already ahead of the game because you’re doing that right now.  You’re here because you’re already doing it.

There are folks like Chef Toni Robertson, who, for the last three years, has helped students from the Mott Hall School in New York plant a vegetable garden and learn healthy eating habits -– even throwing salad parties for parents.  That's a good thing.

There’s also Chef Seth Bixby Daugherty from Minnesota who has worked with -- yes, let’s give him a hand --(applause) -- who has worked with several schools across the country to design easy, healthy recipes（食谱，处方） that taste good and can be made with the equipment that schools already have.

Or there’s someone like Fernando Olea from Santa Fe, who teaches popular cooking classes for local students -- yay, Fernando -- (applause) -- showing them how to prepare healthy meals from his native Mexico.

In the end, it’s all about helping kids build healthy habits that are going to last a lifetime.

And many of you guys know about the White House Kitchen Garden.  We’re going to go down there and harvest with our kids in a few minutes.  But I still remember last year when we started the whole process, and we involved kids from local schools from the very beginning.  They helped us till the soil.  They helped us plant.  They helped us weed.  They helped us harvest.  They ate.  It was pretty powerful.

And several of the schools asked the kids to reflect in writing on their experience.  And this is what helped us to know that we were onto something here.  One of the students described herself as “a pretty regular fifth-grader who loves sweets.”  And afterwards, she wrote that her time in the garden -- and this is a quote -- “has made me think about the choices I have with what I put in my mouth.”   Hey -- winner!  (Applause.)

Another child wrote that “It has inspired us to eat better and work harder.”

And one young man wrote, and this is a direct quote, “I think about the garden project as a model for being gentle:  gentle with nature, gentle to your body, and gentle with each other.  Now we need to remember and follow that model.”  Isn’t that beautiful?  (Applause.)

So ultimately, this is what we’re trying to do.  And as you know, kids are so hungry.  They will take it all in.  They can change their habits, their taste buds（味蕾） , their approaches overnight.  All they need is your encouragement, your enthusiasm, your passion, and your patience.  And if we do this together -- and I know you guys are ready because you wouldn’t be sitting out here in those hats in the hot sun if you weren’t -- (laughter) -- we can change the future for our children and for this nation.

We are so grateful to you, so proud of the work that you’ve done, and we’re asking you to do more to recruit others.  There are about a thousand of you here.  We can triple that number.  And that’s also part of your goal.  We want you to reach out, find those who are less hesitant（踌躇的，迟疑的） , who are a little afraid of kids, who are not sure about schools, and help bring them in.  We’ve got to make these numbers grow because we want you all in every school in the nation.  We want every school in the nation to have a chef partner, a set of kids who call you theirs, who believe that you care about nothing more than how they grow up and how they feel.  The more grownups who are working on behalf of our kids, the stronger they’ll be.

So let’s move, let’s get this done.  Thank you all for the work you’ve done.  (Applause.)  And I look forward to seeing you all in the months to come.  Thanks so much.  (Applause.)

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1:01 P.M. EDT