Our Policy Vision
In the wake of COVID-19, as FoodCorps adapts our work to meet school communities’ evolving needs and priorities, our purpose remains: to dismantle the systemic inequities in our food and education systems so that every child—regardless of race, place, or class—gets the nourishment to thrive.
FoodCorps and two of our partners, National Farm to School Network and National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, are currently advocating for four bills that will support healthy kids and healthy schools. See our current advocacy priorities.
Our nation’s school system doesn’t just teach our kids—it plays a critical and underappreciated role in nourishing them. COVID-19 has clarified our country’s need for a new approach to food in school—an approach that is woven into the broader education system and provides the resources, staff, and funds needed to achieve overarching goals of health for kids and communities.
With the right policies in place, we have an opportunity to integrate food education into the school day, and ensure school food nourishes kids’ minds and bodies, workers’ livelihoods, local economies, and the environment.
To achieve this vision, FoodCorps will advocate—alongside many coalitions, organizations, and stakeholders—for legislation that achieves the following outcomes:
- An equitable, healthy, and sustainable school meal supply chain: We advocate for policies that enable schools to source and serve food that supports local economies, protects lands and waters, treats animals humanely, treats workers with dignity through fair wages, benefits, and safe working conditions, and prioritizes producers and farmers of color.
- School meals for all: We advocate for universal school meals, where students have enough time to eat and enjoy their meals, on a national scale as a means to destigmatize school meals, remove unnecessary barriers to access, support the financial security of school meal programs, and allow child nutrition professionals to focus on sourcing and serving healthy meals and snacks.
- Food education as an academic priority: We advocate for legislation that strengthens food and nutrition education and integrates that education into curricula and standards. We also advocate for policies that create more dedicated staff positions at schools to deliver high quality food education.
- A well-supported school nutrition workforce: We advocate for legislation that recognizes the critical work of school nutrition leaders and staff, through ensuring livable wages, health and safety protections, and resourcing for recruitment, training, and professional development.
- Modernized school kitchen infrastructure: We advocate for policies that increase funding for schools to upgrade and modernize their kitchen and cafeteria facilities to prepare healthy, appetizing meals.
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Developed with the support of The Rockefeller Foundation and other funders.
FoodCorps is a non-partisan, non-profit organization. Foodcorps staff and FoodCorps AmeriCorps members may not participate in advocacy or lobbying activities during work time charged to a Corporation for National and Community Service funded grant or while earning AmeriCorps service hours. No federal funds were used to prepare or distribute this content.