Because DC stood in support of healthy schools, the City Council passed a six percent sales tax on sweetened, non-alcoholic beverages.
Thanks to the work of our coalition, including thousands of individual supporters, our work came to fruition in the form of $6 million of funding for the D.C. Healthy Schools Act.
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Earth Day Network and Campaign for Healthy Kids, a health advocacy group, have formed a coalition to call for responsible funding of the D.C. Healthy Schools Act. The Campaign for Healthy Kids recently commissioned a poll that found that 71% of D.C. voters would support a penny-per-ounce levy on sugar-sweetened beverages if revenues were dedicated to fight childhood obesity. Despite such efforts, the American Beverage Association (ABA) – the corporate lobby for Coca-Cola, Pepsico and Dr. Pepper-Snapple – has launched an aggressive $5.4 million national campaign to take down these efforts. More than 350 stakeholders, including 100 students, participated in the transparent, inclusive process that crafted the unanimously passed D.C. Healthy Schools Act. Now, we must create an even broader coalition and set a national example for funding healthy schools in our communities.