This Week in Farm to School | |
Farm to school connects local agriculture, schools, and partners to benefit students, educators, farmers, families, and communities. | |
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Celebrate School Nutrition Hero Day on May 5th!
Stop by any cafe to watch School Nutrition Professionals prepare healthy meals for students–all while adhering to strict nutrition standards, navigating student food allergies, and offering service with a smile–and you’ll see they are true heroes! Yearly, we celebrate School Nutrition Hero Day to showcase what a difference School Nutrition Professionals make in the lives of every child who comes through the cafe and lift up our #NCSchoolNutritionHeroes.
The Carolina Hunger Initiative is collecting stories about NC School Nutrition Heroes to share as part of an online hall of fame.
School Nutrition Hero Submission
Be sure to share with us on social media (@F2SCoalitionNC) how you are celebrating School Nutrition Hero Day!
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Nurturing Middle Eastern and North African Culture in Youth Gardens
May 16, 2023 // 7 pm ET
Änna Ilbrahim of Shalom Farms and educators Naomi Stein, Iesha Siler, and Levi Brewster will explore ways to nurture Middle Eastern and North African Culture in Youth Gardens.
Register here.
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Economic Impact Assessment of Public Incentives to Support Farm to School Food Purchases
May 18, 2023 // 1 pm - 2 pm ET
Farm to school projects have widely been supported by policymakers with funding provided at state and federal levels. Still, many of the economic outcomes of this inflow of policy and funding remain unclear. In 2018, New York State announced the 30% NY Initiative that substantially increases school lunch reimbursements if School Food Authorities purchase at least 30% of their lunch ingredients as New York food products. With detailed food purchasing data from Buffalo Public Schools, the second-largest school district in the state, and the largest School Food Authority to qualify for enhanced reimbursement, researchers estimate the gross and net economic impacts of the policy through a customized input-output model. Join the webinar to hear results from the study, which was led by Professor Todd Schmit, Cornell Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, and supported by Shayna Krasnoff, MS, ’22, and Cheryl Bilinski, Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest NY.
Register here.
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District Community Engagement
May 24, 2023 // 4 pm - 5:15 pm ET
This is part two of a webinar series hosted by the School Garden Support Organization Network. This webinar will cover how district offices engage their district community in their school gardens, including how to run peer learning communities for teachers across a district and establish community partnerships.
Register here.
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National Children and Youth Garden Symposium
July 12-15, 2023 // Knoxville, TN
The American Horticultural Society is excited to announce that the 2023 National Children and Youth Garden Symposium will be held in Knoxville, Tennessee, July 12 – 15, in partnership with the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture and UT Gardens, Knoxville, the flagship location of the State Botanical Gardens. Reinvigorate your passion to educate a new generation about the importance of gardening. Network, engage, collaborate, and learn from like-minded peers across the country. Explore the vibrant city of Knoxville with its numerous green spaces and innovative, citizen-driven gardening projects.
View the itinerary and register here.
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2023 Farm to School Census Resources
In fall 2023, Food and Nutrition Service will field the 2023 Farm to School Census to request information from school food authorities (SFAs) regarding their use of local food in school meals and other participation in farm to school activities in school year 2022-23. The new 2023 Farm to School Census Partner Resource page offers resources to help State agencies, SFAs, and their partners prepare for and complete the 2023 Census.
Learn more here.
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New USDA Food and Agriculture Mapper and Explorer
The Food and Agriculture Mapper and Explorer (FAME), funded through a USDA Agriculture Marketing Service cooperative research agreement, brings together data from dozens of publicly available datasets to make it easy for food systems practitioners to search for and visualize information about U.S. local and regional food systems. This new open-access resource is designed to increase the accessibility of local and regional food systems data for federal grant applicants, farmers, food entrepreneurs, and researchers.
Learn more here.
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Seeds of Success Toolkit
This free toolkit, created by KidsGardening, shares tips for success to help design, grow, and maintain an edible school garden as a dynamic teaching space.
Learn more here.
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Voices from the Food Chain
Voices of the Food Chain is a project of the Food Chain Workers Alliance and Real Food Media to capture and share stories of the country’s 20 million food workers in their own words.
Watch here.
Six Phases of Racial Equity Practice
The Center for Environmental Farming Systems’ Committee on Racial Equity has developed a tool to help organizations determine their racial equity phase. Determining your organization’s racial equity phase can be useful in planning strategic and explicit racial equity goals.
Learn more here.
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Plant to Grant Challenge
Deadline: May 7, 2023
This Plant a Seed Day, Big Green is awarding grants to nonprofits that activate their communities to plant seeds. A $25,000 grant will be given to the organization with the most pledges, and five $5,000 grants will be selected randomly.
Learn more here.
Cooperative Agreements for School-Based Trauma-Informed Support Services and Mental Health Care for Children and Youth
Deadline: May 8, 2023
The purpose of this program is to increase student access to evidence-based and culturally relevant trauma support services and mental health care by developing innovative initiatives, activities, and programs to link local school systems with local trauma-informed support and mental health systems, including those under the Indian Health Service. With this program, SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) aims to further enhance and improve trauma-informed support and mental health services for children and youth. Eligibility is statutorily limited to State Education Agencies, Local Educational Agencies, and Indian Tribes (as defined in section 4 of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act) or their Tribal Educational Agencies, a school operated by the Bureau of Indian Education, a Regional Corporation, or a Native Hawaiian Educational Organization.
Learn more here.
Healthy Meals Incentives Grants for Small and/or Rural School Food Authorities
Deadline: May 26, 2023
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) and Action for Healthy Kids have worked together to offer competitive grants (up to $150,00 per School Food Authority) for small and/or rural SFA’s to support their efforts to improve the nutritional quality of their school meals and meet the Healthy Meals Incentive Recognition Awards criteria.
Learn more here.
Lots of Compassion Grant
Deadline: June 2, 2023
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day and KidsGardening announce their new Lots of Compassion grant program, designed to support local leaders looking to transform vacant lots into gardens to help grow compassion in their community. In 2023, 10 grantees will receive $20,000 each to transform a vacant lot into a garden.
Learn more here.
Danone Institute of North America Requests for Proposal for Sustainable Food Systems Initiatives
Deadline: June 14, 2023
Danone Institute North America (DINA), a nonprofit foundation managed by Danone North America announced a request for proposal for the third offering of its DINA Sustainable Food Systems Initiative. The biennial competitive grant is now accepting submissions from eligible applicants in the U.S. and Canada. The 2023-2025 initiative commits a total of $260,000 in funding, its largest contribution yet, for up to five transdisciplinary teams who demonstrate a commitment to actionable and achievable projects that sit at the intersection of community, health of people, and health of the planet. Selected grantees will be challenged to design, implement and evaluate actionable community-based projects for sustainable food systems that improve human health and nutrition over a two-year period. Each of the five finalists will receive $50,000 to support and expand their project. An additional $10,000 will be granted to the team with the strongest communications plan, awarded in the fall of 2023.
Learn more here.
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School Meal of All Movement in the NC General Assembly
The School Meals for All Act (HB844) was filed last week and three other specific school meals bills were filed earlier this session: School Meals for Every Child (SB708), Free Lunch for Some Students/Stop Lunch Shame (HB776), and Universal No-Cost School Meals (HB777). Additionally, a number of other bills also include school meals for all.
Learn more about the School Meals for All NC Campaign.
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Open Comment Period for Community Eligibility Provision Participation Change
Due May 8, 2023
The USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service is requesting comments on their proposed rule to expand access to the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP). CEP is a program in which the federal government covers the cost of all reimbursable meals served by a school, regardless of whether a particular student qualifies for free or reduced-cost meals. Currently, a school must serve at least 40 percent low-income students in order to be eligible for this program. USDA’s proposed change would lower the threshold required to participate in CEP from 40 percent to 25 percent. This would greatly increase the number of schools eligible for CEP, and in turn, increase the number of students benefiting from free meals for all.
Learn more here.
Child Nutrition Programs: Revision to Meal Patterns Consistent with the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans
Due May 10, 2023
USDA has extended the deadline to May 10, 2023 for public comment on the proposed rule, “Child Nutrition Programs: Revisions to Meal Patterns Consistent With the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans”. The proposed rule contains new Child Nutrition regulations regarding the School Breakfast Program, National School Lunch Program, Summer Food Service Program, and Child and Adult Care Food Program. USDA proposes allowing schools to include locally grown, raised, or caught as a requirement for vendors bidding to provide food for their school meal programs. In addition, USDA proposes updating the Buy American provision by setting a limit of 5% of total food costs on non-domestic food purchases. USDA is also proposing to make nutrition standards more stringent by reducing sodium, increasing whole grains, and decreasing added sugar (which will impact the ability of elementary and middle schools to offer flavored milk) among other suggested changes. School Nutrition professionals and other stakeholders are encouraged to review the proposed rule and related materials and submit comments regarding the impact of the proposed rule on students, School Nutrition Programs, schools, and districts.
Learn more here.
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