After a tumultuous election season, former Vice President Joe Biden is the president-elect of the United States.

In the past, Biden has vowed to invest in schools, students, and local food systems. Furthermore, Biden’s predecessor, President Donald Trump, spent much of his four years in office undermining access to healthy food and making it harder for families to put food on the table. The first 100 days of Biden’s presidency are an opportune time for the president-elect to take steps toward ensuring all our nation’s kids have access to delicious, nutritious food at school.

Here’s what the new administration can do for kids and families.

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A: FoodCorps is bringing School Food Focus into our existing operations. The merger will boost our ability to support schools across the country in procuring healthier, more sustainable foods for their cafeterias.

Q: Why are FoodCorps and School Food Focus merging?

A: Over the past year, School Food Focus determined that in order to expand its work in school food procurement, they needed to partner with a larger organization that was well-positioned to take it on. They chose FoodCorps because of our national reach, shared funding sources, and strong leadership. FoodCorps is excited to be expanding our work.

Q: When will the two organizations merge?

A: As of January 1, 2018, School Food Focus has joined forces with FoodCorps.

Q: What happens next?

A: Starting now, School Food Focus and FoodCorps are beginning a six-month strategic planning process to assess the next phase of the work. This will include evaluating what school districts need to better procure healthier, more sustainable food, the barriers to doing that, and how the newly expanded FoodCorps can best support schools, industry, and government in improving school meals for all kids.

Q: Who is involved in the strategic planning process?

A: FoodCorps and School Food Focus are connecting with key stakeholders including school district leaders, food industry stakeholders (from producer, to manufacturer, to distributor) and the allied school food community to seek input on how FoodCorps can support healthy school meals. FoodCorps has engaged Wellspring Consulting to guide the planning process.

Q: What will happen to School Food Focus?

A: As this work moves forward, School Food Focus will officially close its doors as an organization. The Executive Director of School Food Focus, Toni Liquori, will be providing senior-level support during the merger, as she moves into retirement.

Q: Does this mean that FoodCorps will no longer have service members?

A: No way! Our current work connecting kids to healthy food in schools, through service members providing hands-on learning and building a schoolwide culture of health, is at the heart of what we do. We will continue to operate our existing programming.

Still have questions? Contact Katrina Moore, FoodCorps’ Content Manager, at katrina.moore@foodcorps.org.

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“FoodCorps and School Food Focus share a vision: that every child in the United States, regardless of income, race, or geography, enjoys healthy school meals produced by a just food system,” said Cecily Upton, FoodCorps’ Co-Founder and Vice President of Innovation and Strategic Partnerships.

“We started School Food Focus with the simple idea that school food is a powerful lever of food systems change,” said Toni Liquori, School Food Focus’ Founder and Executive Director, who will provide senior-level support during the merger. “Working in 46 districts with over $600 million in purchasing power, Focus has begun to alter the school food landscape—improving access to healthier, sustainable and regionally produced foods for millions of low-income children. FoodCorps will expand that reach further than ever before.”

In 2018, School Food Focus and FoodCorps will begin a six-month strategic planning process with school district, food producer/supplier, and school food stakeholders to assess what districts need, the barriers to providing it, and how the newly expanded FoodCorps can best help them provide healthier, more sustainable school meals.

School Food Focus has improved the supply chain for healthier school food for nearly a decade. Today, six of the country’s largest poultry producers have adopted School Food Focus’ standards for cleaner chicken, which eliminate the overuse of medically important antibiotics, and provide for more transparency in food sourcing.

Their work has contributed to more than 100 healthy food products in the school food market, including “clean label”— free from artificial additives or ingredients—sliced turkey and more wholesome bean burritos.

Since launching in 2011, FoodCorps has become a leader in providing healthy school food education and activities that build lifelong habits of healthy eating.

FoodCorps now deploys 225 full-time AmeriCorps volunteers to 350 high-need schools in 17 states and Washington, D.C. FoodCorps members deliver hands-on cooking and gardening lessons to students, connect cafeterias with healthier food options, and bring teachers, parents, administrators and food service teams together to promote good health throughout schools. The organization also advocates for national, state and local policies that support good nutrition in service of strong minds and strong bodies.

FoodCorps and School Food Focus have each received support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to create systemic change for school meals. “We’ve enthusiastically invested in both organizations, and are eager to see them working together to bring more nutritious food to more children, particularly in under-resourced communities,” said Linda Jo Doctor, a Program Officer from the Foundation.

“We’re proud that FoodCorps is standing on the shoulders of what we’ve accomplished with School Food Focus,” Liquori said. “Our work will not be complete until all of the 31 million children who rely on public school meals for their daily nutrition enjoy healthy meals produced by a sustainable and equitable food system.”

MORE INFO

To learn more, please see our FAQs about the merger.

Frequently Asked Questions

ABOUT FOODCORPS

FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders who connect kids to real food and help them grow up healthy. Serving alongside educators and community leaders, FoodCorps members partner with schools to create a nourishing environment for all students.

CONTACT

Katrina Moore
Content Manager
FoodCorps
katrina.moore@foodcorps.org
646-558-3331

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The folks working toward this goal and leading the initiatives are innovative and inspiring. Food Service Director Sam Wilson has been essential in sourcing local produce for her meal programs. She’s partnered with FoodCorps for four years now, to enhance the healthy school environment with hands-on nutrition and garden lessons. New this school year is an exciting collaboration with Brigaid.  Brigaid is placing professional chefs in New London cafeterias, making school lunch more like fine dining—real plates, new recipes, and more scratch cooking.

This new effort, coupled with our service members seems to be a winning recipe (pun intended). Our two corps members in New London, Jess and Katie, are creating an interactive cafeteria environment. They know that if students experience new foods in some way—through tasting it, cooking it, or growing it—they are more likely to eat it and enjoy it. So, as the chefs start to roll out new recipes like roasted tomato soup and seasoned watermelon, students are giving feedback that is considered before the final product makes it onto the menu.  At the same time, Jess and Katie are also creating interactive lessons and activities  to expand upon students’ knowledge of where food comes from and how it grows.  This leaves students feeling excited and empowered to make healthy meal choices on their own!

Special thanks to Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield for supporting our increased service member presence in New London this year! 

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Collaboration trumps competition: Veggiemon Go!

In this version of Pokemon, the community has come together to make this project a success. For the first taste test of the year, the productions class at Tupelo’s local middle school designed a sweet potato “Veggiemon” card, which is awarded to students who try the local sweet potatoes in the school-wide cafeteria taste test. The “Sweeto Taterdude” Veggiemon card is designed to incorporate healthy facts about sweet potatoes and their special attributes.

Topashaw Farms, a local sweet potato farm, joined in the fun by donating the sweet potatoes for the taste tests. Joyful volunteers, parents, and hardworking cafeteria workers came together to create a healthy recipe for the students to try. The potatoes were cut and roasted with cinnamon, and the success was smashing; nearly 500 children were polled, and majority of students “LOVED IT!”

This innovative fun with food is all possible thanks to the Project Produce grant through the Chef Ann Foundation.  The grant provides funds to source local fruits and vegetables for students, but it was left to the recipient to use creativity and ingenuity to achieve that goal. The Growing Healthy Waves program teaches children about healthy eating in the best way possible: through food itself. Students work in school gardens, support local food systems, and enjoy the fruits of their own labors in cafeteria taste tests. The collaboration within the community and school district will continue throughout the year in taste tests as harvests-of-the-month are transformed into Veggiemon or Fruitemon characters!

Why Farm-to-School?

Over 31 million children participate in the National School Lunch Program, whose purpose is “to promote the health and well-being of the nation’s children”. Farm-to-school programs further this mission by helping children’s  healthy habits take root. Children in schools with garden programs eat more fruits and vegetables, and are more willing to try new foods, such as those sourced from local farms.

When children access healthy foods at an early age, they set the stage for a healthy lifestyle moving forward. This is what motivates farm-to-school programs, and what is generating their growth into more schools throughout the country. They support communities by strengthening the local economy, empowering students to make healthy choices, and it is clear that the farm-to-school movement is only gaining momentum.

In this small close-knit city, the farm-to-school movement is an enduring and growing program. The children at the schools tell their parents and their parents share with their friends. In this sense, Growing Healthy Waves is liable to have a broad-reaching ripple effect. Farm-to-school movements thrive off local community efforts; and with small, yet significant milestones like incorporating local sweet potatoes into a creative taste test, we are on our way to growing a healthy generation of fruit and vegetable lovers.

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Robert Parker is one of these folks who has been around since the beginning.  When FoodCorps first started, he was the Child Nutrition Director for Warren County, one of North Carolina’s northeastern FoodCorps sites. He collaborated with the service member in Warren County to get local cabbage and collards onto the school lunch menu. He recently moved down to Brunswick County, the southeastern county that I serve, and we’ve been able to partner on several farm to school projects throughout my service.  I caught up with Robert one afternoon in his office to talk about his involvement with farm to school programming and how FoodCorps is helping him connect kids to healthy food in schools.

AE: In your opinion, why is it important to be doing farm to school?

RP: I think it’s extremely important to do farm to school for our children who are not aware of where our food comes from and some of the healthy nutritious items that are available to them.  I think that our children, through marketing and lack of education, are eating way too many fat and sugary items, getting away from the basics.  Farm to school provides us an opportunity to provide [those basics] for our children as well as use some of our local fruits and produce, so it’s a win-win.  It’s good for schools.  It’s good for kids.  It’s good for our economy and our farmers.

AE: How do you think FoodCorps, specifically, has enhanced your work—in farm to school or just in school nutrition in general?

RP: They’re another tool for us to use.  They come in and provide excellent folks that do the education part for us.  They provide one-on-one attention that a lot of times we don’t have the manpower or the resources to do.  It’s an excellent opportunity and partnership between FoodCorps and the district.

AE: How has having a FoodCorps service member helped push your work forward?

RP: The resources that I’ve had in other districts with FoodCorps has allowed us the opportunity to get our voice heard, not only at the local level but at the state level as well.  The good information and experiences that we’ve had, we’ve shared throughout the nation.  I think any time we get a chance to talk about good, healthy foods for our children is a positive, and I’ve had great experiences with the folks that I’ve worked with in FoodCorps.  

We started in Warren County before I came here to Brunswick.  We started a collard and cabbage co-op, where we actually had our farmers GAP (Good Agricultural Practices) certified.  We developed a market for them throughout eastern North Carolina, and it was very beneficial for schools because we got that good, healthy, dark-green vegetable in collards.  We also got cabbage which came directly from the fields directly to our tables.  It’s sometimes difficult, especially for small farmers, to be able to afford to get into a bigger market, so I think that’s been a real positive for the county.  Here in Brunswick County, we’re looking to do something similar to that.  We’ve already started the process of getting some of our farmers in the area GAP certified and we’re hoping to kinda duplicate what they’re doing in Warren County and possibly even do some things that maybe they haven’t had the opportunity to do.

AE: Do you think all of these things would have been possible without FoodCorps?

RP: I don’t think so.  In Warren County we were very fortunate to have a FoodCorps member by the name of Caroline, and she was actually the driving force behind it.  She got the information for the GAP certification.  She worked very very closely with the farmers and actually got three of our farmers GAP certified.  She was involved with from day one all the way through.  Her efforts were instrumental in making it happen.  

We’ve got an excellent one here too with yourself, Amber, I think you’re doing a great job with working with Cooperative Extension.  A lot of times you have resources that maybe we don’t have, and you have some additional time to work one on one with farmers and the community.  Working with schools sometime limits the additional time I have to work with the community. I think that FoodCorps comes in as another tool, another area of understanding and time that schools sometimes don’t have.

AE: Do you think kids are more likely to eat it if they make that connection?

RP: Yes!  Absolutely.  I think when you identify with something —- doesn’t matter what age you are —- when you identify it and know something about it you’re more prone to take the opportunity to eat it.  Like with collards, in going back to Warren County, I was a little apprehensive.   Even though collards are a “southern” food I didn’t know if a lot of my children had eaten them.  When we brought collards in with a little bit of recipe changes and a little bit of promoting it went over great! I know I keep going back to collards but one of the vegetables that research found that schools need is that dark green vegetable, and that quickly met our needs and was EXCELLENT.  We’re hoping that this project in Brunswick County as well as with the one in Warren County can get collards across North Carolina and possibly even outside our state.

AE: What do you think the biggest challenge is for you as a child nutrition director in trying to integrate more farm to school programing into your work?

RP: North Carolina [Department of Agriculture] has a good farm to school program.  I think my biggest challenge is getting local produce.  I think that our children need to see food that’s grown right here in Brunswick County or in the southeast region, so they can identify it when they’re going down the road.  When they look out and see a field of collards, they know what it is.  

I think our children have gotten further away from the farm as we’ve went to more processed food. I know growing up when I’d go spend some time with my grandmother we ate right out of the garden, and I don’t know how often you hear children say that any more.  We’ve got fewer and fewer family farms, and I think when the farm to school program identifies and works with smaller farms that is a plus.  And if we can do it locally, you can bring those farmers into schools so that children recognize that this is farmer “Ted” who grows all the tomatoes or blueberries or strawberries that we serve.

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