15 Ways Your $15 Powers School Food Change
December 20, 2024 | By
As we wrap up 2024 and our 15th-anniversary celebration, our last blog post of the year highlights the real-world impact of your donations.
2) Transforms cafeterias into classrooms
Scratch cooking allows the cafeteria to be a classroom where kids can learn about food and health. Lunchroom activities usually correlate with increased participation in school meal programs and student excitement about school food. To cultivate meaningful connections to food, schools can engage students with food-focused activities like tastings, art contests, chef demonstrations, and Rainbow Days—where students are encouraged to use and eat fruits and vegetables from the salad bar to create a “rainbow” of at least three colors on their tray that they haven’t tried before.
We create various resources for schools to make these fun activities turnkey. Whether it’s event flyers, letters to the administration, forms, or guides, we make these activities easy for districts across the nation.
» Your $15 helps prepare kids for a lifetime of healthy — and fulfilling! — eating habits.
2) Transforms cafeterias into classrooms
Scratch cooking allows the cafeteria to be a classroom where kids can learn about food and health. Lunchroom activities usually correlate with increased participation in school meal programs and student excitement about school food. To cultivate meaningful connections to food, schools can engage students with food-focused activities like tastings, art contests, chef demonstrations, and Rainbow Days—where students are encouraged to use and eat fruits and vegetables from the salad bar to create a “rainbow” of at least three colors on their tray that they haven’t tried before.
We create various resources for schools to make these fun activities turnkey. Whether it’s event flyers, letters to the administration, forms, or guides, we make these activities easy for districts across the nation.
» Your $15 helps prepare kids for a lifetime of healthy — and fulfilling! — eating habits.
5) Rebrands school food jobs
Innovative school food professionals across the country are skillfully and creatively reimagining what school food can and should be. Yet, long-held misconceptions about the people who work in school food continue to undervalue their inherently important contributions. We partnered with the state of California to change this.
In 2023, we conducted extensive audience research to lay the groundwork for our Powered by School Food Professionals campaign, which seeks to uplift the school food workforce and showcase the myriad of ways they are reimagining school food.
» Your $15 helps us showcase the vital role school food professionals play in shaping the health of kids, the environment, and communities.
5) Rebrands school food jobs
Innovative school food professionals across the country are skillfully and creatively reimagining what school food can and should be. Yet, long-held misconceptions about the people who work in school food continue to undervalue their inherently important contributions. We partnered with the state of California to change this.
In 2023, we conducted extensive audience research to lay the groundwork for our Powered by School Food Professionals campaign, which seeks to uplift the school food workforce and showcase the myriad of ways they are reimagining school food.
» Your $15 helps us showcase the vital role school food professionals play in shaping the health of kids, the environment, and communities.
7) Brings scratch cooking to small and rural districts
Small and rural districts face unique challenges in creating healthier and more appealing scratch-cooked meals. Through the USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, we partnered with Action for Healthy Kids to offer 264 small and/or rural districts the opportunity to receive scratch-cooking technical assistance. These districts were awarded grants of up to $150,000 to improve the quality of their school meals — totaling $30 million.
» Your $15 helps schools overcome obstacles to starting or expanding scratch-cooking programs.
7) Brings scratch cooking to small and rural districts
Small and rural districts face unique challenges in creating healthier and more appealing scratch-cooked meals. Through the USDA’s Healthy Meals Incentives Initiative, we partnered with Action for Healthy Kids to offer 264 small and/or rural districts the opportunity to receive scratch-cooking technical assistance. These districts were awarded grants of up to $150,000 to improve the quality of their school meals — totaling $30 million.
» Your $15 helps schools overcome obstacles to starting or expanding scratch-cooking programs.
12) Empower schools to source local, sustainable foods
Whether farm-to-school or sea-to-school, getting more local foods into schools is valuable. With schools spending $1.8 billion on local food during the 2022-2023 school year, only 16% of their total food spending, there is a lot of potential for increasing local procurement and local economies through K-12 school meal programs.
That’s why we’ve been expanding our capacity to offer highly sought-after procurement technical assistance for schools. We’re also starting our work on creating Values Aligned Procurement Collectives. These collectives can play a critical role in K-12 food service by allowing school districts to pool resources, build collective buying power, and secure better pricing and terms, leading to an increase in local, regenerative, and organic ingredients.
» Your $15 helps schools source more local and values-aligned products and ingredients.
12) Empower schools to source local, sustainable foods
Whether farm-to-school or sea-to-school, getting more local foods into schools is valuable. With schools spending $1.8 billion on local food during the 2022-2023 school year, only 16% of their total food spending, there is a lot of potential for increasing local procurement and local economies through K-12 school meal programs.
That’s why we’ve been expanding our capacity to offer highly sought-after procurement technical assistance for schools. We’re also starting our work on creating Values Aligned Procurement Collectives. These collectives can play a critical role in K-12 food service by allowing school districts to pool resources, build collective buying power, and secure better pricing and terms, leading to an increase in local, regenerative, and organic ingredients.
» Your $15 helps schools source more local and values-aligned products and ingredients.
14) Facilitates policy change
Our policy and advocacy work seeks to advance federal and state initiatives that drive forward our mission of ensuring that school food professionals have the resources, funding, and support needed to provide scratch-cooked meals that support the health of students and the planet.
We advocate for systems-level policy changes that seek to improve the quality of and access to school meals, advance values-based and sustainable food systems, mitigate the impact of school food on the climate, and more.
» Your $15 helps us continue to lead the way in advocating for federal and state policies that support healthy, scratch-cooked school meals.
14) Facilitates policy change
Our policy and advocacy work seeks to advance federal and state initiatives that drive forward our mission of ensuring that school food professionals have the resources, funding, and support needed to provide scratch-cooked meals that support the health of students and the planet.
We advocate for systems-level policy changes that seek to improve the quality of and access to school meals, advance values-based and sustainable food systems, mitigate the impact of school food on the climate, and more.
» Your $15 helps us continue to lead the way in advocating for federal and state policies that support healthy, scratch-cooked school meals.
Help power work like this by donating today! This year marks the Chef Ann Foundation’s 15th anniversary. Will you make a one-time or monthly donation of $15 to power this work for 15 more years?
Plus, up to $25,000 of the donations we receive through the end of the year will be MATCHED by a private family foundation to support our Bulk Milk program, which helps schools drastically cut food and packaging waste!
Help power work like this by donating today! This year marks the Chef Ann Foundation’s 15th anniversary. Will you make a one-time or monthly donation of $15 to power this work for 15 more years?
Plus, up to $25,000 of the donations we receive through the end of the year will be MATCHED by a private family foundation to support our Bulk Milk program, which helps schools drastically cut food and packaging waste!
