Feds wage cupcake wars on moms with school age kids

Photo: Rachel with Cupcakes Take the Cake on flickr (CC)

Don’t mess with moms of school-age children and their bake sales to raise money for their schools. They are preparing to fight back to remove limitations on bake sales included in the just passed Child Nutrition Act.

The Feds thought it would be a ‘piece of cake’ to slip some vague rules and regulations into the child nutrition bill that Preudent Obama signed into law December 13.

Parents are irate over a section of the bill that gives the government the power to limit  bake sale fund-raisers, and is so broad that any president‘s administration could ban bake sales altogether. The bill does not cover bake sales at after hours activities, such as sporting events.

According to the Los Angeles Daily News:

Republicans … and public school organizations decry the bill as an unnecessary intrusion on a common practice often used to raise money. "This could be a real train wreck for school districts," Lucy Gettman of the National School Boards Association said Friday, a day after the House cleared the bill. "The federal government should not be in the business of regulating this kind of activity at the local level."

The legislation is the pet project of the first lady, Michelle Obama, and her campaign to stem childhood obesity. Its aim is to provide more healthful school meals for needy children. The bill also places the responsibility of writing guidelines for schools to follow under the Agriculture Department, which has a year to write the guidelines.