COVID-19 – FoodCorps https://foodcorps.org FoodCorps connects Thu, 09 Dec 2021 19:12:08 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://foodcorps.org/cms/assets/uploads/cache/2016/08/cropped-FoodCorps-Icon-Logo-e1471987264861/239888058.png COVID-19 – FoodCorps https://foodcorps.org 32 32 School Lunch Providers Say That, Even With Pandemic Challenges, They’re Not Giving Up On Healthy Food https://foodcorps.org/school-lunch-providers-not-giving-up-healthy-food/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=school-lunch-providers-not-giving-up-healthy-food Thu, 09 Dec 2021 18:59:56 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=20282 Problems with the supply chain, staffing shortages, and COVID-19 safety protocols affect school districts ability to serve healthy food.

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]]> Nadra Nittle for The 19th

Just weeks before COVID-19 forced schools to go virtual, Bertrand Weber set out to increase the plant-based proteins Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) serves to students. As the award-winning director of the district’s Culinary and Wellness Services, Weber had already overseen a massive makeover of the school lunch program. 

Grant funding enabled MPS to build kitchen infrastructure, allowing more than 40 schools in the district to get the equipment needed to make foods and condiments from scratch — from additive-free pasta sauce and salad dressings to deli meats sans nitrates. With the new kitchen tools, the culinary staff also swapped out chicken nuggets with whole chicken and tater tots with actual potatoes. 

Given these upgrades, offering a variety of plant-based proteins in cafeterias seemed like a feasible next step for MPS. Then, the novel coronavirus struck, bringing not only the plant-based protein initiative to a halt but forcing the school district to scale back its array of menu options.

During on- and offline instruction over the past 21 months, school districts nationally have faced major challenges while providing meals to students: supply chain disruptions, staffing shortages and COVID-19 safety protocols such as requiring food items to be individually wrapped. Many school districts resorted to serving mainly processed foods, but others have worked to adapt, using creative solutions to get fresh produce and locally sourced food to students. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture said this fall that it would invest $1.5 billion to help schools respond to food supply chain disruptions, and school nutrition advocates are hopeful that funding for school kitchen equipment and healthier school meals in the Build Back Better package under consideration in Congress will help, too. In 2010, the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act led school menu items across the country to become healthier by updating the nutrition standards for meals that schools could be federally reimbursed for serving to students. 

Those changes have been key for the nutrition of many low-income kids: More than three-quarters of the 3.2 billion lunches served as part of the National School Lunch Program during the 2020 fiscal year went to economically disadvantaged students eligible for either free or reduced lunch. Children in households headed by women are especially likely to rely on school meals for sustenance, as 60.6 percent of such households experience some degree of food insecurity. 

“Schools were serving age-appropriate calorie ranges, reducing sodium, serving more whole grains and a variety of fruits and vegetables,” said Meghan Maroney, senior policy associate for the Center for Science in the Public Interest. “There’s been huge progress made in the last 10, 15 years in school meals, so it hurts that much more that that pandemic has really halted a lot of great work.”

Since the most vulnerable students need school food to maintain a balanced diet, the contents of these meals matters immensely, say school nutrition directors and advocates for healthy school meals. But some districts appear to be struggling to provide fresh food. Photos of “mystery meats” and other unappetizing-looking lunches served in Paterson, New Jersey, schools led a member of Congress to express concern. In response to the outcry over the photos, the school system “developed a six-step corrective action plan to address the poorly prepared meals,” including staff trainings and the formation of a food services advisory committee, a district spokesperson said. After Riverside, California, parents accused their district of serving moldy cheese sandwiches to students, school officials responded by saying that the sandwiches did not have mold on them but that ice crystals formed on the cheese slices when they were defrosted. 

“A lot of school districts have relied on individually wrapped items more so than in the past, which I think has led to the perception that maybe school lunch has deteriorated,” Weber said. “But the only reason [for these changes] is the supply chain as well as staffing as well as COVID protocols. Most of my colleagues can’t wait to get back to normal. So, it’s not like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to go back to serving crap food.’ That is not the sentiment out there.”

MPS is a case in point that the new normal won’t be permanent. Many COVID safety protocols have eased, and Weber is excited that  the salad bar is expected to return to cafeterias in January. “We’re back to being able to really showcase what we were doing before,” he said. For his school district, that’s largely making food from scratch in the district’s central kitchen. 

But when the pandemic led schools to go virtual in March 2020, MPS handed out meal boxes filled entirely with prepackaged foods. “Everything was prepacked — all fruits and vegetables we purchased individually wrapped, and that was really because of COVID concerns with cross contamination,” Weber said. 

In April 2021, when the district resumed in-person learning, the culinary staff prepared both from-scratch foods, such as pasta with meat sauce and chili, and prepackaged foods, including burritos, burgers and tamales. But the nutrition standards for meals remained the same as the ones in place before the pandemic, Weber said. And the district, which serves about 31,600 students, maintained its access to fresh vegetables by buying produce from local farmers and then processing and packing them in its central kitchen. 

Often, the nutrition staff combined both scratch foods and purchased foods in the same meal. They might buy precooked chicken, for example, but glaze it with sweet-and-sour sauce they made from scratch. The staff prepared all salads, cooked brown rice and steamed vegetables served to students instead of using ready-made versions of these items, Weber said. 

Buying locally has helped MPS avoid some of the supply chain issues that other districts have encountered, but one problem it hasn’t managed to skirt is a staffing shortage. Weber said he’s operating with just 60 percent of his culinary staff, and he is not alone. A national survey of 1,368 school meal program directors conducted from May to June 2021 by the School Nutrition Association found that staffing shortages were a concern for 90 percent of them, and nearly all of them were worried about supply chain disruptions. 

Many staffers, fearful of contracting COVID-19, left their jobs in 2020, Maroney said. And now, schools can’t compete with employers that can offer food service workers signing bonuses, higher wages and other benefits. Replacing the workers who’ve left hasn’t been easy, according to Weber. 

“We work with a temp agency to help us fill positions, and there are basically twice the amount of job openings as there are people,” he said. “When we started this school year, we went back to cooking on site, as we did before, with a more simple menu because we don’t have the staff at the schools.”

Still, Weber said that school cafeterias are slowIy approaching normal once more. By the 2022-23 school year, he predicts that MPS’ menus will be comparable to what they were like before the pandemic — plus, he hopes, more plant-based proteins. 

“We had a lot of initiatives that were started, including a huge effort around plant-based initiatives, and all that got interrupted,” Weber said.

For the West New York School District, it’s too soon to predict when school menus will return to normal, said Food Service Director Sal Valenza. Currently, his priority is to ensure that students continue to eat quality meals amid supply chain disruptions that affected his New Jersey school district almost as soon as the pandemic closed schools in March 2020.

“Manufacturers weren’t ready for all the individually wrapped things we needed,” he said. They caught up, quickly making wrapped items and meal kits available, he said, “but there was certainly a little bit of a learning curve in the beginning.”

With schools physically closed but virtually in session, Valenza continued to feed students in the West New York School District, which includes about 8,000 students. Initially, the food service team handed out lunches of sandwiches, fruits and vegetables. From there, the staff gave families meals to cook at home, such as pouches of macaroni and cheese or the ingredients for a chicken teriyaki bowl. At its peak when schools were closed, the district served 15,000 meals a day, seven days a week, up from the roughly 9,000 meals it served on school days pre-pandemic, Valenza said.  

The weekend meals included produce boxes and gallons of milk instead of the standard half-pint. Valenza said the district worked with companies that aggregate products from farms in the Tri-State area of New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, a reliable source of produce that did not require them to depend on cross-country shipments delayed by trucker shortages and related problems.

“We were able to use our local guys who were picking the apples up at the farms and bringing them right to us,” Valenza said. “There were no issues with distribution because the supply chain was much shorter. If you can shorten that supply chain and take some of the pieces out,  it’s going to be easier for you.”

Valenza also sourced baked goods such as bread, tortillas and empanadas from local vendors. He became a regular customer of a minority-owned business that individually wrapped products for the district. By purchasing about 10,000 items per week from the company, the district prevented it from having to lay off staff during the pandemic.  

Asked what advice he would give to school districts that are still struggling because of supply chain delays, Valenza noted that he’s instructed his staff not to serve any food that they wouldn’t feel comfortable with their own children eating. But he also said that it’s unfair to judge a food service team by a viral photo of a school lunch gone bad. He shared how applesauce in a meal kit his school district served spilled out of its package, unbeknownst to the food staff. By the time it was served to a student, the sauce had grown moldy and the kit needed to be discarded.  

“You don’t know what that looked like when they got it,” he said. “And maybe it wasn’t so great looking to begin with, but there were some points where we were just trying to get food, and we were happy with what we could get.” 

In some cases, nonprofit organizations partnered with schools to help fill gaps when schools went remote. Alicia Loebl, a service member of FoodCorps, a national nonprofit that works to connect children to healthy food in schools, had to contend with multiple disasters last year. Most of the elementary students Loebl teaches in Oregon’s Phoenix-Talent School District were displaced by catastrophic fires when classes went virtual during the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. The wildfires resulted in 80 percent of students in the district losing their homes.

Read More

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]]> Recapping Our National School Lunch Week #LunchChat https://foodcorps.org/recapping-our-national-school-lunch-week-lunchchat/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=recapping-our-national-school-lunch-week-lunchchat Tue, 19 Oct 2021 16:14:53 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19724 Partner organizations, school nutrition leaders, and educators chatted about the innovative ways they are helping keep kids fed.

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]]> On October 14, FoodCorps was joined by many of our nonprofit partners, school nutrition directors, educators, and others for a Twitter chat celebrating National School Lunch Week and the recent release of our newest report, Nourishing Learners. 

This year’s National School Lunch Week comes at a pivotal time for school nutrition leaders, as nationwide supply chain challenges — on top of the ongoing pandemic — are making it more difficult than ever to source and serve nourishing school meals. 

But school nutrition leaders are innovating, collaborating, and coming up with creative solutions to these problems, in many cases moving mountains to keep kids fed. During the Twitter chat, we heard from participants about local procurement, greater collaborations across schools, and other ways that school nutrition teams are overcoming the current crisis. 

Participants also uplifted universal school meals as a solution to many of the challenges with school nutrition, like low participation rates and the stigma associated with receiving free or reduced school meals. 

They also shared lots of appreciation for school nutrition teams, who are powering through one hurdle after another to continue prioritizing students’ health, happiness, and connection to school meals. 

Thank you to all who joined this Twitter chat! 

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]]> Build Back Better and More: Your August/September Policy Brief https://foodcorps.org/build-back-better-and-more-your-august-september-policy-brief/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=build-back-better-and-more-your-august-september-policy-brief Thu, 30 Sep 2021 18:01:28 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19652 Federal legislators have a lot to consider this back-to-school season. Here are the policy updates you need to know.

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]]> As the summer wound down and kids went back to school, federal legislators returned to Capitol Hill with plenty of important issues and deadlines to address. Here are the policy updates you need to know. 

Congress Considers Historic Investment in School Meals in the Build Back Better Act

As you likely have seen in the news, Congressional Democrats have been working hard to find a pathway forward for President Joe Biden’s $3.5 trillion social spending package, called the Build Back Better Act. They plan to pass the bill through the budget reconciliation process—an infrequently used budgetary tool to pass a bill with only 51 votes (If you are curious how this process works, check out this blog post from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition). 

What does this bill mean for school meals? The great news is that the child nutrition provisions of the bill would allocate nearly $35 billion in child nutrition programs over the next 10 years, creating more equitable access to healthy food at school. 

If passed, the child nutrition provisions of the Build Back Better Act will bring about:

  • Free school meals for nearly nine million more children through the expansion of the Community Eligibility Provision
  • $634 million in funding for more experiential food education, school gardens, and farm to school local procurement
  • $500 million in funding for school kitchen upgrades
  • Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) benefits to keep 21 million kids nourished in the summer months

We are excited to see Congress recognizing the critical role of school meals in nourishing students. In particular, the proposed funding for food education and school kitchen equipment show that our advocacy over the years for such investments is making an impact—thanks to advocates like you! Special thanks to FoodCorps partners who have participated in virtual Hill meetings to share about their work connecting kids with healthy food.

But the fight is not over. While the child nutrition provisions of the bill have passed out of the House Education and Labor Committee, the larger bill needs to be stitched together and passed by both the House and Senate. The fate of the bill remains a little unclear as we write this update, with Congressional leaders facing several hurdles to get the bill over the finish line. 

One thing we know for certain is that your elected officials need to hear from you! Congress must keep focus on this important legislation and resist the pressure to cut these important investments in our children. Now is the time to tell your members of Congress that children’s health must be their top priority. Urge your lawmakers to protect the critical investments that will support kids and families in the years to come.

Take Action

 

USDA Responds to School Meals Supply Chain Challenges

As communities everywhere continue to recover from the pandemic, people and businesses around the world are facing major supply chain issues from delays to product shortages and price increases—and school food is no exception. In response, the USDA announced $1.5 billion in funding to states as well as some program flexibilities to help schools navigate the supply chain challenges.

While staff and food shortages are felt by many school districts across the country, some school nutrition programs with robust farm to school programming and scratch cooking already in place report fewer supply chain issues, which illustrates how farm to school contributes to creating a resilient food system. 

In other USDA news, the following announcements came out of the department recently:

Related read: Staff shortages and supply chain issues are adding to schools’ struggles as educators figure out how to feed kids

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]]> Lights Out, Bellies Full https://foodcorps.org/lights-out-bellies-full/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lights-out-bellies-full Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:50:33 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19467 Tara McDaniel writes about the scramble to teach, feed, and support kids during a rare schoolwide blackout.

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]]> A darkened hallway of a school during a blackoutBy Tara McDaniel, FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member ’21

Glow light bracelets flicker in the dark. There is a dull, blue illumination glowing in the school hallway from the makeshift lanterns constructed of standing flashlights. Above these sit empty plastic jars — the five-gallon jars once held dill pickles. Some of our students wear head lamps to track their way to the bathroom.

This is not a school sleepover event or a party day. We are completely out of power within the school building. Last night a huge storm came through the entire region around the rural community of Cedarville, Arkansas. A tornado briefly touched down about 20 miles away from the school. Fences, trees, and power lines are down throughout the area. Every school surrounding us is closed due to power loss. Although our main building is without electricity, our cafeteria has power. Within the cafeteria the lights are on and the kitchen is cooking. So our school doors are open today.

In fact, all of our doors leading outside are open because there is otherwise little light to safely travel down the halls. Some of our teachers have opted to use the cafeteria as their classroom, but we could hardly hold them all even if we didn’t have COVID guidelines to follow. Fourth grade English Language Arts is sitting outside under the awning listening to their teacher read. Many teachers grade papers next to the windows as their students use the same sunlight to practice their handwriting or work math problems. Our campus security guard moves around the small school with his eyes peeled. Inside our eyes adjust to the dark.

The decision to be open today despite the lack of electricity throughout the main building was heavily influenced by what our school provides its students. Of course, our main objective at the school is to teach students academically. That said, they are offered so much more on the school grounds. We have an on-site counselor to help with their emotional struggles. Thanks to our elementary school principal, the onsite Wellness Clinic offers healthcare to our students. It provides medical, dental, and eye care treatment. And then there are the very basic needs we provide for these kids. Our school offers 100% free breakfast, lunch, and dinner that meet National Breakfast and Lunch Program requirements. Simply put, if we were not open today some of these kids wouldn’t eat.

Cedarville is a town within rural Arkansas near the border of Oklahoma. It is a tight-knit community. The people within know their community’s strengths: charity, faith, and selfless service. Those same strengths help identify others within the community that may be experiencing hardships. Accessing nutritious foods is one of those hardships. For those students living in food insecure households, our cafeteria offers the mealtime table for each meal.

This town is impacted by profound barriers to healthy food access. We have a dollar store, a grocery store, and two gas stations leading out of town. Families that struggle with poverty often also struggle to maintain reliable transportation in order to get to the grocery store back to their homes. We do not have any sidewalks running adjacent to the highway that runs through the town. This makes travel by foot on the winding road at the foothill of the Boston Mountains a hike worthy of a backpacking trip. Parents rely on the free food services at the school as it solves these problems.

So we are open, without power, feeding children. It’s reminiscent of when we had staff preparing bagged meals that were delivered by school bus all spring after our state shut down schools. Our Nutrition Director — a firm woman who’s good with numbers and has a big momma bear heart — would put food in anyone’s empty hands. The students would go to their bus stops to pick up the bagged food, chat with the staff, and get any homework ready. Our school is a free summer lunch program site, so our buses continued to run breakfast and lunch all summer.

If there’s one silver lining to COVID closings, it’s that it gave school lunches a platform. It demonstrated to those who can eat at home that not everyone has the same resources. Like many other communities, Cedarville answered with a range of grassroots efforts to feed those who faced an empty dinner plate. The school became a hub through which food could be distributed by different means. Local churches handed out boxes of perishable food through car windows. The school offered pre-posted SNAP applications. Through social media, the school spread the word about emergency SNAP benefits offered by the state to the parents of school-age children in order to help offset the costs of putting food on the table.

Tara working with kids in the garden
Tara working with kids in the garden.

Our school garden was open to one family at a time. Families were free to pick as much produce as they could eat. The garden always made available a first aid kit — including COVID PPE — gardening tools, and child and family activities. The space was left available as a connection to the school which so many students had otherwise lost. On the fence a sign was put up made out of plastic Solo cups that read “Keep Growing, Cedarville.”

I am the school’s FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member. I give hands-on lessons, support healthy school meals, and help create a schoolwide culture of health. I get to do the fun stuff like garden lessons, school taste tests, and send school-garden grown produce home with the students. My work is flexible. This morning I scrapped my garden maintenance plans to pass out glow sticks. Next, I will be with a fourth grade science class utilizing our garden as a classroom for a lesson about worms and the active role that earthworms play in our food systems. This wasn’t my original schedule for the day. Using the garden classroom is not something that I am unprepared to do, yet I know that teaching in the dark is not something in the lesson plans. Today, teaching outside is where I can help serve the school.

Our students are enjoying their glow light bracelets. They are trading colors or connecting them together to make necklaces. Marks streak the floor from desks that have been dragged closer to the windows for light. 

The usual murmurs of the copy machine and the computers have been replaced by soft voices humming and pencils moving. There are plenty of extra recesses all over the campus to keep the day active; there is only so much learning to be done without the technology to print worksheets or sign into virtual classrooms. The teachers and staff are stressed. They do not realize how wonderful they have made this day for the students. We are all just glad to know that their minds continue to learn in this space that we can provide and that their bellies are full.

FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member Tara McDaniel was selected as the winner of the 2021 FoodCorps Victory Growers Award “for a compelling account of hunger and food insecurity,” winning a $5,000 prize for her service site, Cedarville Elementary School in Cedarville, AR. The award, sponsored by C&S Wholesale Grocers, highlights that many children struggle with hunger and food insecurity, and that the food they receive at school is the most important meal they will get all day.

Read more from the 2021 Victory Growers essay contest: 

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]]> Finding Abundance https://foodcorps.org/finding-abundance/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=finding-abundance Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:50:04 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19458 Service member Ann Dang writes about her community's efforts to distribute fresh, healthy food during the pandemic.

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]]> Ann Dang
Ann Dang stands in the garden at her service site.

By Ann Dang, FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member ’21

One scene that stands out from this past year, while we endured the pandemic, is the image of long lines snaking through neighborhood streets, of people waiting and hoping to pick up aid from food banks all across the country. The next scene: produce being dumped for reasons I could only narrowly grasp: disruptions in the supply chain leading to a surplus of crops. The solution seemed simple, yet uncontrollable circumstances prevented distribution as COVID-19 began shutting down industries. The economic toll of the pandemic was felt by everyone — and most certainly by the farmers who grew our food and were left stranded with millions of pounds and nowhere it could go. The links to the farms were broken and the disruption was felt by all, with low-income citizens hit hardest.

According to an annual report by the Food Research & Action Center, Los Angeles Unified School District has among the highest concentrations of low-income students in the state of California, with more than 80% living at or below the poverty line. 24th St. Elementary is an LAUSD Title I public school located in the Jefferson Park neighborhood of South Los Angeles. As this area has been historically underserved, the closure of public schools during this time meant the closure of many students’ main food source: school cafeterias.

People got to work in other ways. LAUSD, ranked No. 1 in the nation for its free breakfast program in the same annual report, responded by setting up Grab-and-Go centers, and the school nutrition staff once again did the necessary and essential work of feeding our school families. Still, there’s always more to be done.

On the northwest corner of 24th St. Elementary sits a 1.5-acre school garden where we once held garden and cooking classes with students. With distance learning in place, we were left with a lonely garden, emptied of students yet bursting with abundance. We thought of ways to reconnect with our school community and address the concern of food insecurity. We began ramping up production and harvesting crops to share. We supplemented our crops with generous donations of surplus produce from a local nonprofit that rescues food from farmers markets and wholesale distributors — diverting waste from landfills and redistributing the food to hunger relief programs. As evidenced in the early days of the pandemic, the produce is there; it just needs a way to reach  everyone. So, every other week, we began to pick up hundreds of pounds of free food: arriving at sunrise, loading up our cars with pallets of produce, and taking it to 24th St. Elementary for redistribution. At first, we were modest in our distribution efforts. We harvested around 80 pounds of fresh produce from the school garden and picked up 500 more from a local non-profit, Food Forward. We made announcements and set up tables and signage in front of the school. Still, we weren’t sure what the turnout would be. There was a moment of hesitation — what if no one comes and we’re left with all this produce? Before we could think about possible alternatives, families began showing up and within 15 minutes, everything was gone.

At the height of the pandemic, when aid was needed most, we increased our efforts and began redistributing upwards of 1500 pounds of produce every other week. As spring arrived, cases began to fall and vaccines were rolling out. We were able to change our model from contactless pick-up to an open market where anyone could come and pick out free fresh produce and were encouraged to take more. We found visitors often hesitating out of modesty or consideration of others waiting in line, wanting to make sure there was enough to go around for everyone.

Currently, our Free Farmers Market happens bi-weekly at 9:00am; it’s timed during the District’s Grab-and-Go program to help streamline things. Families can pick up hot prepared foods as well as their choice of available fresh produce. The market has become an anchor within the school community; members returning and chatting with school staff, recipes being exchanged, conversations and excitement around new produce. We talk about the different kinds of dishes one could make with calabacita and ask what one would do with fresh garbanzo beans. Images of pozole and slow-roasted vegetables come to mind and stomachs growl. Luckily, it’s lunchtime now: the food has been shared and it’s time to rejoice in the abundance.

FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member Ann Dang was selected as a runner-up for the 2021 FoodCorps Victory Growers Award “for a compelling account of hunger and food insecurity,” winning a $1,000 prize for her service site, Garden School Foundation in Pasadena, CA. The award, sponsored by C&S Wholesale Grocers, highlights that many children struggle with hunger and food insecurity, and that the food they receive at school is the most important meal they will get all day.

Read more from the 2021 Victory Growers essay contest:

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]]> Community in the Wake of Wildfires https://foodcorps.org/community-in-the-wake-of-wildfires/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=community-in-the-wake-of-wildfires Mon, 13 Sep 2021 16:49:41 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19462 Service member Alicia Loebl writes about keeping kids fed through two crises: the COVID-19 pandemic and the wildfires in the western U.S.

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]]>
Alicia and two staffers distribute food to students.

By Alicia Loebl, FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member ’21

The Phoenix-Talent School District in Oregon has faced unprecedented challenges this year. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased flexibility by district staff and families to provide a safe and valuable learning environment for all students. Students have been managing the shift to distance learning and many parents have been juggling constant changes in schedule. Nutrition services shifted to provide meals for pickup to families to support the necessary service of school food. The ability to cope and adapt to an entirely novel educational system has been such a feat for all involved in our school community.

During the first week of school in the fall of 2020, this community experienced catastrophic wildfires. It was recorded that 80% of the families at Phoenix Elementary lost their homes. Many of these families were already struggling due to challenges of the pandemic. The district considers 100% of the families at Phoenix to be affected by the fire due to the stress of evacuating or knowing their family and friends lost homes. The aftermath of the fires led to an increased sense of community, with groups working together to feed the members of our community who needed assistance the most. Rogue Food Unites began organizing meals from local restaurants. The restaurant El Tapatio dedicated countless hours and supplies to create a place for families to get the things they need and coordinated assistance with federal programs.

Almost eight months post-fires, our community is still in need, and the schools and local non-profits have been stepping up to fill in the gaps. Rogue Valley Farm to School was able to adapt a program put in place to support those struggling due to the pandemic to be able to support fire victims as well. In collaboration with the Phoenix-Talent School District, Rogue Valley Farm to School got to work to begin distributing Farm to Family boxes. These boxes were extremely successful in the summer of 2020 with USDA funding to be able to feed thousands of people in the Rogue Valley. The boxes contained excess produce that farmers would normally be selling to restaurants and were given out for free at schools to families in many different school districts around Southern Oregon. This program was unable to continue without additional funding and ended just before the beginning of the next school year.

In the wake of the wildfires, the district got to work with Rogue Valley Farm to School to be able to provide for their community. Beginning in January, as many other aid systems were beginning to move out of the area, families had access to 150 free boxes of produce every week to be picked up at Phoenix Elementary and Talent Elementary. Rogue Valley Farm to School partnered with community liaisons to make sure the boxes were going to those who needed them the most. The school contacted families who they knew were deeply impacted and created systems for them to receive a box, even if they could not come directly to pick it up. It has been amazing to see the community collaborate on distributing boxes to where they will be most needed, with some rockstar community members being willing to take hours out of their day to pick up boxes and distribute them to displaced families in housing far from the school itself.

Due to the creativity and collaboration of dedicated partners, this program is still in action and has been supported by so many local organizations who care deeply about seeing their community nourished and fed. I have felt so lucky to have the opportunity to hand out boxes each week and see the excitement of families picking up a box with a new produce item they have never tried before. Each box goes out with a “Food for Thought” guide to engage families with nutrition and provide produce-based activities for children. To date we have distributed over 2,000 boxes with 600 more going out in the next three weeks. We hope to continue and expand this program to support not only our school community, but also our agriculture community and countless others around the Rogue Valley. 

FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member Alicia Loebl was selected as a runner-up for the 2021 FoodCorps Victory Growers Award “for a compelling account of hunger and food insecurity,” winning a $1,000 prize for her service site, Rogue Valley Farm to School in Ashland, OR. The award, sponsored by C&S Wholesale Grocers, highlights that many children struggle with hunger and food insecurity, and that the food they receive at school is the most important meal they will get all day.

Read more from the 2021 Victory Growers essay contest:

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]]> Statement: FoodCorps Mandates COVID-19 Vaccines Among Staff and Service Members https://foodcorps.org/statement-foodcorps-mandates-covid-19-vaccines-among-staff-and-service-members/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=statement-foodcorps-mandates-covid-19-vaccines-among-staff-and-service-members Thu, 02 Sep 2021 15:42:59 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=19499 COVID-19 vaccination is the safest and most just way to protect communities from the virus and create safe places for kids to learn and thrive.

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]]> September 2, 2021 — In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge of the Delta variant, and the virus’s devastating impact on communities around the world, FoodCorps today announced that the organization will require staff and service members to receive the COVID-19 vaccine to ensure safer environments both at schools and in workplaces. FoodCorps will enforce this mandate to the extent permitted by applicable state and local law.

As many children head back to school for in-person instruction this year, FoodCorps is committed to protecting the health of kids and communities. COVID-19 vaccination is the safest and most just way to protect communities from the virus and create safe places for kids to learn and thrive. FoodCorps’ decision is informed by recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Academy of Pediatrics, as well as many of our school partners. 

In the 2021-2022 school year, FoodCorps will support 220 service members serving in 13 states and Washington, D.C. FoodCorps service members are expected to serve in-person at their schools and sites when students and teachers are present for in-person learning in their community. Ensuring all service members are vaccinated is crucial in cultivating safe environments for the kids and families with whom they interact. 

FoodCorps employees and service members will have until September 10, 2021 to provide proof of both vaccines or proof of the first vaccine with the intent to receive the second dose in the recommended time frame. FoodCorps will be accepting medical or religious exemptions for those who qualify. 

About FoodCorps 

Together with communities, FoodCorps connects kids to healthy food in school so that every child—regardless of race, place, or class—gets the nourishment they need to thrive. Our AmeriCorps leaders transform schools into places where all students learn what healthy food is, care where it comes from, and eat it every day. Building on this foundation of direct impact, FoodCorps develops leaders, forges networks, and pursues policy reforms that in time have the potential to improve all of our nation’s 100,000 schools. To learn more about FoodCorps’ work across the country, visit http://www.foodcorps.org. 

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]]> What the American Rescue Plan Means for National Service https://foodcorps.org/what-the-american-rescue-plan-means-for-national-service/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-the-american-rescue-plan-means-for-national-service Mon, 05 Apr 2021 21:08:43 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=18936 The American Rescue Plan included a number of wins for national service. What impact will it have on service members?

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]]> The American Rescue Plan did a lot more than make the go-to conversation starter, “Have you received your stimulus check yet?” 

The American Rescue Plan was also a win for food and national service. With FoodCorps being a proud partner in the AmeriCorps service network, I decided to speak with Stella Doughty and Kendra Dawsey, two people in our FoodCorps community, to hear what they think the American Rescue Plan’s renewed support for national service will mean for service members. Their insights reveal the importance of this legislation and where we go from here. 

What is the American Rescue Plan? 

The American Rescue Plan of 2021 is the most recent coronavirus pandemic relief bill passed by Congress to provide support to people and communities around the United States. Signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, the $1.9 trillion legislation aims to provide direct relief to families, support the national vaccination program, boost the economy, and address challenges exacerbated by the pandemic, such as food insecurity. 

Why did national service members need additional support? 

The American Rescue Plan’s additional $1 billion investment in national service demonstrates the importance of AmeriCorps service members in supporting community needs, particularly during the pandemic. Through the advocacy of the coalition organization Voices for National Service, this additional investment supports not only increasing service member living stipends but also expanding the number of service members serving communities around the nation in the years to come.  

“It’s been many, many years that we’ve been advocating for certain elements of [the American Rescue Plan], like, in particular, increasing the living allowance for [service members]. It’s just not a livable wage, and it does not support recruiting a diverse class,” said Stella Doughty, Grant Partnerships Manager at FoodCorps and a FoodCorps alumna. It’s a consideration that Kendra Dawsey — Food Programs Manager of Healthy Chelsea in Massachusetts, FoodCorps site supervisor, and FoodCorps alumna — remembers having during her year of service with FoodCorps in 2016. 

Seizing that opportunity to serve in a program like FoodCorps’ can be challenging for people without additional financial resources to sustain themselves during their period of service. As a result of these barriers, young leaders from diverse backgrounds might turn down the opportunity to serve, and existing service members might struggle to fully focus on their service as they work to address any financial difficulties that they have. 

Dawsey noted that supporting service members is particularly important during this pandemic.

“The pandemic has negatively affected almost everyone, and that includes service members and their families. So, I think giving support to anyone, and especially service members who are trying to make change in the community and trying to support everyone — I think that’s very, very helpful.” 

Why is supporting national service also a win for communities? 

An increase in living allowances for service members might, at first glance, seem like it only benefits service members. In reality, the benefits of this investment also promise to diffuse into communities. 

When asked why increasing investment in national service and recruiting diverse service members, especially from the communities that FoodCorps serves, is important, this is what Doughty had to say: 

“Having shared experiences with the community that [service members] are serving adds that much more value to the service they’re able to provide. The community connections that they bring just being from that place and sharing lived experiences strengthens their service and what they’re able to accomplish, and it also makes their service that much more long lasting — impactful in the moment and impactful in the future.” 

Recognizing how familiarity helps with building understanding and trust, Dawsey added, “If you’re from that community, you’re going to more intimately know their needs, the issues that are going on, and you probably have seen some ways to tackle [some of those issues] yourself. And it also helps with familiarity on a very basic level; it helps when making connections.” 

In my conversations with Doughty and Dawsey, these stories of impact in the moment and in the future came to light. Dawsey spoke about her first two supervisees, for instance, whose growing connection with the communities in which they served led them to extend their work in those communities beyond their service year. 

The support offered by the American Rescue Plan to help in recruiting service members from diverse backgrounds and from the communities that FoodCorps serves seems to hold the great potential of making national service more effective and sustainable.  

Where do we go from here? 

While the American Rescue Plan seems to be a step in the right direction for service members and communities, more work needs to be done.

From increasing living allowances to a livable wage corresponding to the cost of living in a service member’s location to institutionalizing the role service members play — for instance, by hiring full-time food educators in schools — future legislation has the potential to have an even more meaningful impact in communities. 

Take action: Sign up for policy alerts!

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]]> Report: How Schools Have Worked Together to Feed Kids During COVID-19 https://foodcorps.org/our-new-report-school-meals-during-covid-19/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-new-report-school-meals-during-covid-19 Mon, 29 Mar 2021 17:44:16 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=18902 We wanted to learn how school communities are keeping kids fed during these challenging times. Here are the mid-year findings.

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]]> School Meals During COVID-19 Report CoverWhen the COVID-19 pandemic hit, schools — including school nutrition programs — had to regroup fast. Millions of students rely on schools for their daily meals, a reality that didn’t change because of the pandemic. 

We know when school nutrition and education leaders align around the importance of school meals, students benefit. COVID-19 created a unique opportunity for this collaboration among district leaders to put the important task of nourishing students front and center. That’s why, last fall, FoodCorps launched a research project to learn about how school communities are working together to keep kids fed during these challenging times.

This yearlong project aims to understand how K-12 school district-level administrators and school nutrition operators are collaborating, thinking about meal programs, and providing school meals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The most important thing, throughout this experience, is having a seat at the table and a voice in the room when we’re trying to figure out what to do. The key is not to redo things five to six times; the key is to have a seat at the table. You have to get loud and have your voice heard.” —Director of Nutrition Services 

Now, we’re excited to share School Meals During COVID-19: A Midyear Report, a report providing insights from the conversations held in the fall and winter. Later this year, we will publish a report including a synthesis of the 70-80 conversations held during the 2020-2021 school year, as well as key insights learned during the process. 

Read the report

What’s inside

The report shares findings from 36 interviews conducted from November 2020 through January 2021 with superintendents, school nutrition directors, and other district leaders. These leaders span a diverse profile of 19 U.S. school districts in 16 states.

Respondents shared what’s been working well during the pandemic as well as the challenges they faced, from creative teamwork in providing meals to changing regulations, budgets, and participation rates.

For example, for many communities, the pandemic has underscored the important role schools play as both nutrition providers and community hubs. It has created more recognition of the role schools play in addressing hunger, with school food filling a need some didn’t even know existed. Some school leaders commented that, at times during this crisis, they have had to forget about finances and budget and just feed kids and families.

“What jumps out to us is that we serve really high-quality meals that are wanted. We started with, ‘What does our customer want?’ and built that.” —Superintendent

We believe these conversations make it abundantly clear that nutrition services staff and district administration leaders have been utterly heroic in how they have adjusted and responded to the needs of their districts and the communities they serve. With grit and grace, they have put their lives on the line and have rallied their site teams and school colleagues to join them, all rolling up their sleeves in service of providing healthy school meals to students and families.

We’re deeply grateful to superintendents, school nutrition directors, and other district leaders who have taken the time to speak candidly with us during this challenging and incredibly busy time, and we hope our broader communities can learn from their insights and experiences. 

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]]> What We’re Looking For in a Service Member https://foodcorps.org/what-were-looking-for-in-a-service-member/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-were-looking-for-in-a-service-member Mon, 15 Mar 2021 14:00:35 +0000 https://foodcorps.org/?p=18855 Applying to serve with FoodCorps? Here's what to highlight in your service member application.

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]]> When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, nearly everything changed — including FoodCorps service. 

Almost overnight, our AmeriCorps service members completely modified their routines to meet our shared new reality. Some pivoted from in-person food and nutrition lessons to Zoom and YouTube classes. Some supported their communities with emergency food distribution. All of them added stylish FoodCorps masks to their wardrobes. 

The end of the pandemic is within reach, but service may still look different for a while. And the traits that helped our service members persevere throughout the pandemic — like flexibility, creativity, and motivation — will still be important when COVID is long gone.

Ready to serve, regardless of what the future holds? Here are some of the qualities we’re looking for in a rock-star service member through COVID and beyond. 

  • Adaptability. Service is full of surprises. Sometimes the farmer’s market doesn’t have the right herbs for your lesson. Other times, the kids in your class just aren’t listening to your cooking demo. What do you do next? FoodCorps service is all about being flexible and adaptable — to the needs of your students and to the particulars of the community where you’re serving. 
  • Creativity. Do you see challenges as an opportunity to learn something new? Tell us about it! One great example of creativity during service is our members’ quick pivot to video lessons at the beginning of the pandemic. Though video skills weren’t expected of our corps members, many of them learned to record and edit fun, informative videos to keep their students engaged through remote learning. 
  • Motivation. Our work is meant to get kids excited about growing, cooking, and eating healthy food. And our service members should be excited along with them! If you’re enthusiastic and passionate about connecting kids to nutritious food, you’ll thrive as a service member. Tell us about your passion in your application by sharing a personal experience or a moment in your life that connects you to our mission. 
  • Compassion. Your students, school community members, and fellow service members bring all kinds of experiences with them to the classroom, garden, and cafeteria. It’s important to approach your role with compassion and care for everyone you’ll encounter during service. Tell us in your application — what motivates you to serve the community this way? And how will you center compassion in your work? 
  • Commitment to equity. Our work is about ensuring that kids of all races, places, and classes have positive, nutritious experiences with school food. That takes a dedication to social justice, to undoing racism, and to dismantling the oppressions that have created an inequitable, unjust food system. How do you carry out these values in your life, and how will you bring them to your service? Let us know.
  • Commitment to self-care. Social justice work can be draining — especially during a global pandemic — and you can’t show up for your students if you aren’t showing up for yourself. While resilience and perseverance are important, so is taking the time to care for yourself and your well-being. Consider how you’ll recharge your solar panels and take care of your needs if selected to serve. 

Sound like you? Apply to serve with FoodCorps today! 

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