Susan "Teton" Campbell
Susan Campbell, the director and co-founder of Spirit In Action, has established an exemplary track record as an entrepreneur, marketing expert, and nutritional activist.
She has often worked in the innovative forefront of issues and trends. As a stockbroker at Letterman Transaction Services in Newport Beach, CA, in the mid-70’s, she helped pioneer nationally the concept of discount brokerage. As a designer and building contractor in Gig Harbor, Wash., she created houses unusual for the time with passive solar and natural building elements. As vice-president of marketing for Avco Financial Services, headquartered in Newport Beach, Calif., then the largest financial institution in the country, she built an unprecedented consumer loan portfolio of $15 million. In the film industry she worked as production manager, development and packaging of feature films, and was controller for RavenStar Pictures, a subsidiary of Viking Films International.
When she read Diet for a New America by John Robbins in 1991, she found her life’s work. She joined the executive staff of his Santa Cruz based organization, EarthSave International, which educates consumers about the physical and environmental effects of their food choices. Her business expertise contributed to the $500,000 raised in foundation and corporate funding for the non-profit group.
During her time with EarthSave (1991-1997) Campbell worked in collaboration with top nutritional and environmental experts in government, business, and academia. She co-created the Healthy School Lunch Program based on her extensive research and experience in schools across the country. The program was a comprehensive, integrated approach that philosophically examined food choices in the context of nutritional, environmental, and social ramifications. On a practical level, the program was packaged through the publication of The Healthy School Lunch Action Guide, co-authored by Campbell and funded by the Threshold Foundation. It was created for immediate use for five constituencies: Parents and concerned citizens received how to kits that demonstrate how to lobby educational policy makers effectively; school administrators received materials to enable them to enact and implement a policy of healthy cafeteria food; food service personnel received videos and cooking instructions that showed them how to prepare whole food meals; teachers received up-to-date curricula for classroom education; students received booklets educating and empowering them to make healthy food choices. The program provided every tool that a district or school needed, and the results were impressive: school districts across the country now serve their children healthier fare.
In a 1995 study of school nutritional programs, the Washington DC based Physicians’ Committee for Responsible Medicine singled out ten districts for excellence – and 9 of the 10 were schools that had implemented The Healthy School Lunch Program. The children loved the tastier food: For example, when Peabody Elementary School in Santa Barbara changed to a healthier food menu using The Healthy School Lunch Action Guide, the children buying lunches jumped from 100 to 400 meals per day. In another study funded by a grant from a private family foundation, it was shown that through the use of the program’s curricula, Junior High and High School students in three school districts (San Jose, CA, Cincinnati, OH, and New York City, NY) chose healthier foods as a result of a one hour classroom presentation as opposed to 16 weeks of nutritional education.
The Healthy School Lunch Action Guide, the 200-page resource manual sold over 15,000 copies nationwide. To promote the cause, Campbell traveled extensively speaking with parents, administrators, food service workers, and students across the country. She addressed government agencies, organizations, and associations while being widely interviewed by newspaper, radio and television journalists.
During her tenure with EarthSave, Campbell organized members of the Natural Products Industry (natural food and supplement manufacturers, retailers and distributors) to form the Natural Products Council. Enlisting such celebrities as Paul McCartney, Woody Harrelson, Kevin Nealon, and Ed Begley, Jr., Campbell spearheaded the organization of the council with a national marketing campaign targeted toward the LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health And Sustainability) market.
In 1997 Campbell started Spirit In Action, Inc., a Boulder, CO based non-profit organization whose goal is to make the health and welfare of children the overriding consideration in all government, corporate, and individual decisions. In 1998 she collaborated with Citizens For Health (Boulder, CO), to launch a national campaign entitled “Let’s Keep Organic, Organic”. Campbell enlisted celebrities; Woody Harrelson, Ali McGraw, Ed Begley Jr., to speak to the federal governments attempt to dilute organic labeling. The campaign broke records for consumer letters received by the US Department of Agriculture and resulted in a rewrite of the labeling policy.
To date, Campbell has raised more than $250,000 from foundations and private donors for its programs, including a Rockefeller Foundation-funded marketing and economic study in a Los Angeles Charter School to develop a school lunch pilot program that other inner-city schools can easily duplicate. Currently in development with Spirit In Action, Campbell is producing a multimedia package (A Book, TV Special, and Internet Resource) titled “Healing America’s Youth”. The project shows the complex interplay of social, cultural, economic and environmental factors that negatively impact American youth and convincingly demonstrates how to bring about healing for a healthier culture.
[ Healing America's Youth ]
Spirit
In Action
808-250-1535
susan@spiritinaction.org
Action Guide copy write @1994 Earthsave Foundation