The first woman to ever hold the 1st Hampshire District seat, Lindsay Sabadosa has her AB from Wellesley College (‘02) and her MSc from the University of Edinburgh (‘06). She was the recipient of the Wellesley-Yenching Program Fellowship, which led her to spend a year in Nanjing, China as a fellow at Ginling College at Nanjing University. She then moved to Italy where she worked in Marketing & Communications at CUP2000, a company in Bologna that strives to improve access and delivery of health care and provide telemedicine solutions throughout the European Union. In the same period, she opened her own small business, a translation firm, specializing in Italian and French legal and financial translation with a focus on international litigation, contract law, and finance. She ran this firm, with over 300 clients on six continents, for nearly 17 years until her election.
Hampshire County is better than most counties in the state when it comes to food security. However, 10% of individuals and between 12-15% of children do not have adequate access to food. We must continue to build on our strong network of food pantries and public health agencies until no one goes hungry.
Poor nutrition leads to many adverse effects, including chronic disease, depression, poor mental function, obesity, and general poor health. This impacts not only the lives of those who suffer directly, but the rest of society as we all live with the diminished capability of our community members and the expense of their care. Therefore, I support the recommendations of the Massachusetts Food System Collaborative, which includes, among other things:
Food insecurity is especially harmful to children. It can cause lifelong health consequences such as a compromised immune system, higher risk of frequent illness, higher hospitalization rates; iron deficiency anemia, higher numbers of chronic health conditions, mental health disorders, and poor health in general.
I will work to provide increased resources to the agencies that support people who are food insecure, including the Departments of Transitional Assistance, Public Health, and Education, with special attention to SNAP, WIC4 and school meal programs.
Breakfast After the Bell is a federally funded program. I support the legislation that has passed in the Senate and is pending a vote in the House that would require all public K-12 schools with 60% or more students eligible for free or reduced-price meals under the federal National School Lunch Program to offer breakfast after the instructional day begins. Benefits of the program include improved academic achievement, improved student health, increased attendance rate, and increased federal funding for high poverty schools.
One hundred Massachusetts schools have already implemented the Breakfast After the Bell model. In total, 600 schools and more than 260,000 children statewide could benefit from the program.