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:

• Lights Out, Bellies Full by Tara McDaniel
• Community in the Wake of Wildfires by Alicia Loebl

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School nutrition directors across the United States are finding new solutions to ensure students receive uninterrupted meal service.

Thirty million children in the U.S. rely on school for at least one of their daily meals and as a result of the pandemic, this figure is growing, according to a report from Save the Children. But an audit conducted by Burbio finds that over 30 percent of U.S. students are attending class entirely online during the 2020-21 school year, making food distribution more challenging.

With the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) extension of the National Waiver to Allow Meal Pattern Flexibility in the Child Nutrition Program, individual states now have the ability to grant free meals to all students for the 2020-21 school year. This extension both increases the number of students covered under free meals and gives school districts more flexibility around meal composition and distribution.

But schools are facing logistical challenges to meet the increasing demand and distribute the meals as efficiently as possible.

In Bridgeton, New Jersey, students have the option of attending classes in person or from home. “Trying to solve the labor involved with fulfilling these needs is definitely a huge challenge for us,” Warren DeShields, Director of Food Services at Bridgeton Public Schools, tells Food Tank.

Despite this, schools are learning how to reach their students and ensure they receive the food they need. “While many systemic issues have been highlighted… districts are also finding innovative solutions,” Morgan McGhee, FoodCorps’ Director of School Nutrition Leadership, tells Food Tank.

Read more

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As any good science teacher knows, if you get the kids saying, “Ew!” you’ve definitely got their attention.

“Talking about worm poop always gets the ‘ews’ going,” says Jordyn Vitorno, one of a group of ten FoodCorps Service Members working within the 21 elementary schools of Oakland (Calif.) Unified School District (OUSD) to set up worm beds in learning gardens and integrate worm lessons into the curriculum for more than 7,000 students.

According to Vitorno, “a few brave souls got to hold the worms and eventually the majority of students worked up the courage to hold a worm or two!”

Since last fall, the FoodCorps members have been working with Oakland’s Nutrition and Gardening Program, engaging students in collecting food, feeding worms in worm bins, learning fun worm facts and seeing worm anatomy and worm behavior up close.

The lesson also teaches about sustainability. While regular composting is still the main way fresh food scraps are diverted in Oakland schools, worm composting—vermicomposting—isa living lesson in one of nature’s amazing life cycles.

In one class, students played a nutrient cycle card game with six picture cards: a person eating an apple, throwing the apple into compost, a worm eating the apple, the worm excreting compost (called worm casings) and the compost supplying nutrients for an apple tree to grow. To win the game, the cards end up in a circle.

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Serving as a FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member can help you discover new, meaningful career paths. Hear from three alumni about how their experiences with FoodCorps led them to exciting and meaningful career opportunities post-service.

Apply now

Apply to serve by March 13.

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In this new video, you’ll hear from both kids and adults in FoodCorps partner schools in California, Georgia, and New York about how FoodCorps service has helped transform their cafeterias and classrooms.

Apply to serve

Special thanks to our featured partners: Bertha DeLeon (P.S. 151K in Brooklyn, NY), Linette Dodson (Carrollton City Schools in Carrollton, GA), and Pamela Lee (Ocean View School District in Oxnard, CA).

Directed, shot, and edited by Kaliya Warren. Additional footage by Tim Wu.

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WATSONVILLE—MacQuiddy Elementary students were given a special treat Friday when local farmer Javier Zamora visited during lunch break to teach them about strawberries.

Zamora, who runs JSM Organics out of Aromas, set up a table at the side of the school’s cafeteria and covered it with cases of different strawberry varieties. It didn’t take long for the children to notice.

Becca McKnight, from Pajaro Valley Unified School District’s Food & Nutrition Services stood guard in front of the strawberries, promising the eager students that no one would leave empty handed—they just had to wait their turn.

“It’s great, seeing them so excited for fresh fruits and veggies,” McKnight smiled. “And they really are at the prime age to get interested in where it all comes from.”

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The garden was built at the beginning of this school year.  With the help of a Garden Grant from the Whole Kids Foundation, which was developed in partnership with FoodCorps, they were able to build an outdoor classroom, a row of umbrella-fitted tables for shade in the constant California sun. Later this year, they will also buy a garden shed with funding from the Whole Kids Foundation. FoodCorps continues to support the Garden Grant program by partnering with our alumni to review the 1,200+ grant applications per year. Each recipient is awarded a $2,000 mini-grant to support school garden projects, such as the outdoor classroom at Mar Vista Elementary. At the beginning of garden lessons, the students assemble at the tables while Katie gives some context and instructions for that day’s hands-on activity. Today, she’s teaching all about worms and the benefits they give to the soil, and the kids will get to place worms into the garden beds and harvest a few carrots and beets.

After the seated lesson, the kids divide into groups for the hands-on activity. In one group, they are gently lifting handfuls of worms and dirt from a bucket, then digging into the garden bed to place worms underground. In the other, kids are thrilled to pull a carrot out of the ground and reveal the mystery that was once hidden in the dirt. Taking her second big bite from a just-pulled, freshly-washed raw beet, one student exclaimed, “It tastes sweet! Like candy, but from the ground.” Being in the garden is exciting; kids look in wonder as worms wriggle in their hands and carrots that they planted earlier in the year are finally pulled from the ground. They are excited to try the vegetables that they have seeded, watered, and now harvested. When asked if food tastes better when you grow it yourself, one student said, “Yes, because it’s a sense of accomplishment.”

All photos by Steve Ettinger.

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Feeding a crowd in Hawai’i

On Monday, Hawaiʻi service members came together to beautify the Waimea Elementary School garden and prepare a locally-sourced meal for 100+ volunteers. Students, families, teachers, staff, and community members spent the morning planting native plants, working in the garden, and painting the campus. The lunch featured produce from local farmers, including kalo (taro) harvested from the school garden that morning!

Long-distance gardening in Arkansas

A FoodCorps elementary school in Springdale, AR donated garden beds to another FoodCorps elementary school — all the way in Van Buren, 70 miles away! On the day of service, many Arkansas service members worked to get the garden beds taken down from Bayyari Elementary, transported 70 miles, and rebuilt at Rena Elementary. Rena had no garden beds before Bayyari’s donation, so this will make a huge difference to the school!

Walking for Peace in Washington, D.C.

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Like many kids his age, Matthew hated vegetables. Over months of hands-on lessons, we tasted a dozen vegetables. I made it my mission to find one he’d like. The whole class joined in, encouraging him to try veggies at lunch. One spring day in the cafeteria, it happened: Matthew tasted a cucumber for the third time and he liked it.

Where Matthew goes to school at Willow Cove Elementary in Pittsburg, CA, 85% of students are eligible for free or reduced-price meals. During my service, I learned that parents want their children to eat healthy foods, but many struggle to provide them.

That’s where FoodCorps service members come in. They team up with schools to teach kids to love healthy foods and eat them on a daily basis.

I’m a FoodCorps alum and a monthly donor.
Will you become monthly donor too today? >> 

Kids everywhere deserve the encouragement and support Matthew got to learn how to grow up healthy. That’s why I’m a FoodCorps donor. And I’m giving today because we have an extraordinary opportunity—the first 50 people to become monthly donors will secure an additional $1,000 for FoodCorps! We would love to hear from you about what inspires you to give, and I hope you will join me in becoming a monthly donor.

I am proud of the role that my two FoodCorps years played in the lives of the children and schools that I served. With your help and the energy and commitment of our service members and partners, we are growing a future where all our nation’s children know about healthy food and eat it every day. 

Sincerely,

Elizabeth Esparza
FoodCorps Alumna ’17

P.S. Want to help make big things possible for Matthew and other students like him? Become a monthly donor to FoodCorps today >>

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Growing up, easy access to fresh, healthy food was a consistent part of Linnea Mack’s life. It wasn’t until she got a little bit older that she realized that wasn’t the case for everybody.

“I was raised in a home were we ate mostly organic,” said Mack, 21, a recent graduate of UCLA. “When I was in high school, I realized that was a privilege in many ways, and that not everyone ate or knew about the importance of good food. It helped me realize how lucky I was.”

That realization remained at the back of Mack’s mind as she studied geography—with an emphasis on environmental issues—in college. A course focused on cities and food further enforced Mack’s understanding that food access is a matter of social justice, and after graduating this past spring she spent the summer working with Food Forward, an organization that collects leftover produce from Los Angeles-area farmers’ markets and distributes it to organizations dedicated to poverty and hunger relief.

Mack said seeing firsthand the positive impacts of fresh food for those who received it encouraged her to continue on that path. She applied and was accepted to FoodCorps, an AmeriCorps program dedicated to educating schoolchildren about and connecting them to healthy food and eating habits. She recently began working toward those goals with the Chico Unified School District. She’ll spend one year in Chico with the program and, while she grew up in San Jose, she’s no stranger to the area, as her grandparents are longtime Butte County residents.

Read

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