This Week in Farm to School from NC April 21, 2022

Farm to school connects local agriculture, schools, and partners to benefit students, educators, farmers, families, and communities.

Kids Gardening Grant Winners Congratulations to the winners of the Kids Gardening 2022 GroMoreGood Grassroots Grant winners in North Carolina! E.K. Powe Elementary School (Durham, NC) Henderson Independent Middle & High School and Happy Roots (Salisbury, NC) Love A Sea Turtle - Leadership, Advocacy, Service, Training (Winterville, NC) South Creek Elementary School (Robersonville, North Carolina) The Governor Morehead Foundation/PCC (Raleigh, North Carolina) See all the winners here.

Summer Meals 101: Back to the Basics & United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Update April 26, 2022 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm EDT  Join No Kid Hungry for a refresher on non-waiver summer meals operations and a regulatory update from the USDA as we approach summer. Register here. Making Your School Wellness Policy Count Webinar Series April 27, 2022 //10:15 - 11:30 am EDT Join North Carolina Healthy Schools for session two of their Making Your School Wellness Policy County series. During this session, you will cover how to assess compliance and progress with wellness policies, report, and communicate challenges and successes for the required Triennial Assessment. Please note that this session takes place during the Annual NC SHAC Meeting as a breakout session.   Register here. 30th annual National Children & Youth Garden Symposium (Richmond, VA)  Deadline to apply for scholarships: April 29 The American Horticulture Society is looking forward to hosting an in-person conference from July 13 to July 15 where attendees can learn from one another in face-to-face interactive and hands-on ways, visit and tour gardens and greenspaces, and network in both the facilitated and unfacilitated ways that conferences provide. There is also a limited number of scholarships for discounted or complimentary registration available. Scholarships will be awarded based on three factors: a demonstrated commitment to children's and youth gardening initiatives, work with an underserved and/or Title I population, and financial need. Apply here. Recording: What Makes School Gardens Thrive? Learn about two key pieces of research on indicators of building successful school garden programs by Associate Professor Jaimie Davis of UT Austin and Assistant Professor Kate Burt of Lehman College at the City University of New York. During this webinar, hosted by the School Garden Support Organization Network, Jaimie shares a summary of her research of over 110 school gardens and introduces viewers to a school garden sustainability survey and scorecard. Kate shares an overview of the GREEN Tool, including its domains, as well as initial results and observations from her work identifying how school gardens build a resilient support community. View the recording here.

Community FRESH Community FRESH is a community garden guide, created by NC A&T Cooperative Extension, that will help those interested in organizing or starting a neighborhood or community garden. This guide will focus on ‘how-to’, ‘hands-on’ garden practices and will provide help in cultivating relationships around the common goal of creating a bountiful, nourishing garden.  Read more here.

School Nutrition Association (SNA) Supply Chain Survey SNA and No Kid Hungry are partnering to better understand how School Nutrition professionals, industry members, and state agency staff are negotiating supply chain problems. Please complete this short form to provide them with some information about you and your availability to participate in listening sessions to gather information and share knowledge about the supply chain.  Complete here.

NC Cooperative Extension: Starting Your School Garden  Download this guide to get started on developing a plan to build and sustain a school garden. From crafting a school garden team to managing volunteers, learn best practices to set your school up for success. Read more here.

The Checkout: Episode 116 - Liz Carlisle & the Deep and Diverse Roots of Regenerative Farming The Checkout is a podcast that focuses on the voices and efforts of essential workers on the frontlines of our food system. In this episode, The Checkout speaks with Professor Liz Carlisle about the deep and diverse roots of regenerative farming. Liz Carlisle is an Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at UC Santa Barbara, where she teaches courses on food and farming. She has written three books about regenerative farming and agroecology: Lentil Underground (2015), Grain by Grain (2019, with co-author Bob Quinn), and most recently, Healing Grounds: Climate, Justice, and the Deep Roots of Regenerative Farming (2022).  Listen here.

Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP) Deadline: May 16 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has opened grant applications under the Local Agriculture Market Program (LAMP). This funding is available through three channels, with the USDA including a focus on Farm to Institution (FTI) projects for two of the funding streams: The Local Food Promotion Program (LFPP) grants will develop food businesses that connect local food to institutions, and the Regional Food System Partnerships (RFSP) grant supports public-private partnerships that build and strengthen the viability of local or regional food economies. The third stream, the Farmers Market Promotion Program (FMPP), supports direct-to-consumer markets such as farmers markets and CSAs. The Wallace Center has created this set of resources on applying. Learn more here. National Institute of Food and Agriculture Grant Deadline: July 28, 2022 The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative Sustainable Agricultural Systems supports approaches that promote transformational changes in the U.S. food and agriculture system. NIFA seeks creative and visionary applications that take a systems approach for projects that are expected to significantly improve the supply of affordable, safe, nutritious, and accessible agricultural products while fostering economic development and rural prosperity in America.  Learn more here. Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) Grants CSPI is releasing several grant opportunities this funding cycle that are organized into 4 focus areas: State and local policy grants, community prioritized policy innovation grants, federal lobbying grants, and power building grants. Many topics will be relevant to school meals, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR), and other categories related to Farm to School. Click the link below to find more information, including resources for applicants and application information, and sign up to be notified about relevant funding opportunities. Learn more here.

Support Kids Not Red Tape Senator Stabenow and Senator Murkowski introduced a bipartisan bill to extend the USDA waiver authority for Child Nutrition programs (read more about why that's important). Follow this link to urge our Senators to support this bill. Read more about the bill. National Farm to School Network State (NFSN) Policy Map NFSN recently launched an exciting new State Policy Map resource. State legislative sessions are in full swing, and they would love to learn about state policies that should be highlighted and shared through this interactive tool. View the map here. Extensions for Child Nutrition Waivers A report released on March 7 by the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service underscores the negative impact of supply chain disruptions and staffing challenges on School Nutrition Programs during the 2021-2022 school year. The report also found that nearly 90 percent of school districts used the Seamless Summer Option (SSO) waiver to serve meals for the school year 2021-2022, which allows schools to offer all students meals at no charge and provides higher reimbursement rates which have been needed to support nutrition finances during the pandemic. Learn more here. Child Nutrition Reauthorization (CNR) Update Advocates are gearing up for another potential push for Child Nutrition Reauthorization, the largest piece of federal legislation that authorizes school, summer, after-school, and early care and education (ECE) meal programs. You can read more about the CNR process and National Farm to School Network's top issues here, and see information about key legislative proposals ("marker bills") here. While no package of legislation has yet been released, there is an opportunity to build support among legislators for strengthening these programs through funding, access, farm to school activities, and an equity lens that can truly shift power for a racially just food system. Use this form to reach out to your legislator and let them know the Child Nutrition priorities that are important to you.

Ways that White Bias Can Misdirect Food System Work This podcast is part of the Duke Sanford World Food Policy Center's series on racial equity in the food system. They spoke with Alison Conrad, a research associate at the World Food Policy Center. She has published a research brief on Identifying and Countering White Supremacy Culture in the Food System. Learn more here. Othering & Belonging Institute's Structural Racism Remedies Repository This is a repository of policy-based recommendations for addressing structural and systemic racism or advancing racial equity drawn from a vast array of published material. Read here. Food Is Medicine Research Action Plan Crafted by the Center of Health Law and Policy Innovation at Harvard Law School, this action plan demonstrates how equity can be integrated into health and nutrition programming. Read more here.

Farm to School Coalition of NC | www.farmtoschoolcoalitionnc.org

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