Communities with existing farm to school initiatives andmulti-agency collaboratives were able to quickly pivot toprovide urgently needed food access while re-investinglocal, philanthropic, and federal dollars into a local foodeconomy reeling from pandemic disruptions. It is preciselybecause of community-scale networks and ongoingpartnerships (rather than large scale or consolidated efforts)that initiatives highlighted in this brief were able to providehundreds of thousands of pounds of locally produced, fresh,and healthful foods to community members impacted byCOVID-19 and the associated economic crisis.

OUTCOME

In the spring of 2020, the COVID-19 emergency causedthe abrupt shut down of schools and many early careand education sites across the country. These closuresnot only disrupted classroom learning, they limitedaccess to school meals, a vital source of nutritious foodfor many children. Prior to COVID-19 related closures,United States Department of Agriculture Child NutritionPrograms served nutritious meals to 29.4 millionchildren per day. Three quarters of these meals wereserved to children eligible for free or reduced pricemeals, based on their family income. The closures ofschools in addition to other wholesale outlets haveseverely impacted food producers. Inflexibility and lackof diversity within consolidated food supply chains andsome supply chain partners left producers withabundant product that they could not move amidstdramatic market losses.

In addition to or as an alternative to leveragingfederally funded programs, communities developedtheir own ways to respond to and support children andfamilies. Many schools used their distributioninfrastructure and reach to become hubs for familiesand communities to access food beyond school meals.By partnering with philanthropic organizations, citygovernments, and non-profit community organizations,many schools became central distribution points forCommunity Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares, localfood boxes, or grocery bags. These are all broadlyreferred to as “food share programs.” Communities alsoused the opportunity to prioritize purchasing from localfood producers, especially farms that have historicallynot had access to institutional markets and federalsupports, including small farms and farms owned byBlack, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), tosupply these programs.

April 2021

ISSUE

Hannah Leighton, Farm to InstitutionNew England

Lacy Stephens, National Farm toSchool Network

Sadé E. Collins, National Farm toSchool Network

Lilian Brislen, University of Kentucky

INNOVATION

Local Food Systems Response to COVID:LFS-IB-13

1

Building Better Beyond

PreK & K-12Schools as

Access Pointsfor Local Food

Family Food Box program, attempted to help fillthis food access gap for families and provideoutlets for producers. However, in execution ofthe program, distribution of these food boxes wasa challenge and local and regional servingproducers, particularly producers of color, did notproportionally benefit from these fundingopportunities. Schools and partnering communityorganizations played an essential role in bridgingthe divide between local food systems and anarray of emergency food distribution efforts. This brief highlights school-based food shareprograms and identifies strategies for successfullyusing them to feed students and their familieswhile supporting the local food system. Further, itexamines how many of these initially short-termemergency programs are transitioning topermanent models.

Early in the pandemic, as students were firstshifting to remote learning, school districts andcommunities quickly adopted several differentmodels for procuring, distributing, and fundinglocal food shares for K-12 and early care andeducation (ECE) students, their families, and thecommunity. While logistics varied, the programshighlighted in this brief relied on multi-organization community partnerships toeffectively launch and operate their food shares.New programs were quickly established incommunities with existing collaborative networks–between school districts, non-profits, foodpolicy councils, farms, farmers’ markets, extensionoffices, food banks, and others.

For example, in Massachusetts, the SpringfieldFood Policy Council (SFPC) and SpringfieldPublic Schools (SPS) have a longstandingcollaborative relationship. They have successfully

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School meal programs are an importanteconomic support for families. These programsallow families to use what might be limitedhousehold funds on other expenses with assurancethat their children are receiving nourishingbreakfast, lunch, snacks, and often dinner atschool. Disruption of access to these meals,resulting from school closures, coincided withdramatic increases in unemployment andreverberating pandemic-related economic losses.The pandemic and associated economic crisiscreated an unprecedented spike in the number offamilies experiencing food and nutritioninsecurity. Feeding America projects anadditional 864,000 children are now living infood insecure households due to COVID-19,bringing the estimated total in the U.S. to 2.2million children. Schools and communities responded quickly toaddress the needs of children and families. Thanksto a series of USDA waivers, schools were able toshift meal service to innovative COVID-adaptedapproaches. In many instances, these waiversenabled schools and community service sites toprovide meals to all children free of charge andallowed for service models such as grab n’gomeals that families could pick up, and even mealdelivery to neighborhoods using school buses. Inaddition, Pandemic EBT (P-EBT), supplementalfunds to purchase food while children had lessaccess to school meals, was available for familiesof children eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals. And yet, many districts across thecountry have faced challenges balancing thequality and nutrition of these meals with slashedbudgets and limited staff. These issues arecomplicated further by the logistics of grab n’godistribution as well as significant delays in theimplementation of P-EBT.

Federal interventions, including the Farm to

Background

On-site Food Share ProgramsDuring COVID-19

Power In Food Policy Councils

advocated for policies such as universal freebreakfast, lunch, and breakfast after the bell. Inaddition, they have implemented programsresulting in school gardens, salad bars in everyschool, and a multimillion-dollar Sodexo-runculinary center designed to increase the amountof fresh, local food served to students. At thebeginning of the pandemic, World Farmers inLancaster Massachusetts, a farming cooperativethat provides land, resources, trainings, andmarkets for over 300 immigrant and refugeefarmers, began distributing food boxes toSpringfield families through the USDA Farmersto Food Box program.

In addition to providing a supplement to schoolmeals, working with World Farmers allowedSFPC and SPS to support 300 farmers of color,include food items in the boxes that wereculturally appropriate to families, and led to manyof the farmers becoming authorized for theMassachusetts Healthy Incentives Program (HIP),which allocates additional funding to householdsfor authorized local fruits and vegetables. WorldFarmers delivered 450 boxes of produce eachweek to the culinary center where it was storedand refrigerated by Sodexo and delivered toschool meal pickup sites. By the time funding forthat program ended in June, it was clear thatmany families were reliant on it as a food source.“We had to keep fresh food in front of people,that’s all we knew,” says SFPC Director LizWills-O’Gilvie of the additional $90,000 theyraised to keep the program running through thegrowing season. Of that funding, $20,000 wentto building 58 garden beds for communitymembers (many of whom were also receivingboxes). That effort employed four low-incomeresidents far above minimum wage and theremainder went directly to World Farmers.

Starting in mid-April, the District ofColumbia began contracting with DC CentralKitchen and Martha’s Table (two organizations

with extensive experience in emergency fooddistribution) to bring 3,000 grocery bags offresh, local produce to 10 different DC PublicSchool meal sites each week. With support fromthe DC Food Policy Council, the EmergencyOperations Center chose ten sites based on thegeographies that would serve the greatestnumber of people and reach the areas with thehighest levels of food insecurity. Prior to theCOVID-19 pandemic, the DC Food PolicyCouncil regularly worked with District agencypartners from DC Public and Charter Schools,the emergency food sector, The Department ofHuman Services, and others working to increasefood security and access across the city. Theserelationships allowed the Emergency OperationsCenter to leverage the subject matter expertise ofstaff in place to quickly identify geographic areasthat would most benefit from their services.

When speaking about the program, Director ofFood Policy for the District, Ona Balkus said“We were thrilled to be able to contract withlocal emergency food nonprofits who couldprovide high quality, fresh groceries to ourresidents. It makes sense to meet people wherethey are, providing fresh food and supportinglocal organizations through a difficult time.”

While available to anyone in the city, thegrocery bag program was strategically co-locatedwith public school feeding locations to best servestudents and their families. Starting in April andending in October, the program served almost90,000 bags of food to anyone in DC that neededthem. “A big part of this was about keeping foodas local as possible,” DC Food Policy Councilstaffer Tariq Sheriff says of the nearly 1 millionpounds of food distributed. “This is a big part ofwhy we contracted with these non-profits whowere already sourcing local. It keeps dollars inthe District, keeps folks employed, and helpsaddress food insecurity.”

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East of Springfield in Lowell Massachusetts,nonprofit Mill City Grows (MCG) coordinates aYouth Food Justice Program, runs an urban farm,and manages the gardens at 13 schools in thedistrict of Lowell Public Schools (LPS). At thebeginning of the pandemic, Mill City Growsturned three of those school gardens intoproduction spaces, growing produce for 300school garden shares. Notably, 60% of theproduce was sourced from the gardens and theremainder came from local farms. Using Mill CityGrows’ commercial kitchen, the produce wasvetted for quality, washed, and packaged fordistribution at summer meal pickup sites over aperiod of ten weeks. The shares were free, withno questions asked, for any family or communitymember. “Beyond food distribution, one excitingeffect of this program was the re-galvanizing ofteachers and administrators around their schoolgarden spaces,” says Lowell Farm to SchoolManager Maggie Nowak, “especially during thesummer, a [traditionally] difficult time formaintenance and engagement for schoolgardens.”

Since 2019, Concordia Charter School inMesa, Arizona has partnered with Sun ProduceCooperative on a food share program that isavailable to students and their families as well asother community members. During a normalschool year, the program is largely run by the 6thgrade class who sort wholesale lots of producesourced from growers across Arizona into theindividual food shares. Students use the programto raise money for extracurricular activities likescience camp and gardening activities. While thefood share program shut down in the early weeksof the pandemic when students left school,Wellness Coordinator Rachel Gomez Acosta soonrealized that there was a huge demand in thecommunity for the service the program provided—weekly home delivery of fresh, local foods.

While Rachel didn’t have the students to helpwith packaging, she was still able to relaunch theprogram quickly thanks to the strong existingrelationships with Sun Produce Cooperative andthe community network of customers.Relaunching the program provided Sun ProduceCooperative another outlet for wholesale ordersthat Rachel then packaged herself into individualshares. It helped support the Cooperative missionto “create viable alternative distribution streamsfor Arizona’s smaller-scale producers.” The sharesare designed to include Arizona grown producestaples that families are familiar with and toshowcase unique products from smaller farms inthe community.

The CSA program is open to and promoted tofamilies at the school and to local communitymembers. CSA shares are SNAP-EBT eligibleand anyone paying with EBT receives 50% offthe bag price through the Double Up FoodBucks program. The shares also includeeducational pamphlets with nutritionalinformation, storage recommendations, andrecipes. As food insecurity in Mesa accelerateddramatically amid the pandemic, more familiesare relying on EBT just as more families arecooking at home with limited access to schoolmeals. Access to locally sourced food boxes (andcooking and preparation educational materials)became an important resource for families in thecommunity.

4

Building on Powerful Partnerships

Early care and education (ECE) sites, whichfocus on the education and growth of childrenunder the age of 5, also leaned on innovativepartnerships to keep families fed during thepandemic. Depending on the state andjurisdiction, many early care sites remained openand continued to serve families, even as publicschools closed. Early care sites often providewrap-around services and resources for families.Amid the pandemic, they continued to work tomeet the needs of the families they serve.

CentroNía, with locations in WashingtonDC and Maryland, provides early childhoodeducation, professional development to educators,and family support services in a bilingual andmulticultural environment to more than 2,400low-income children and families. Since 2018,DC’s CentroNía, has partnered withFRESHFARM Markets to provide families withfarmers’ market vouchers and highlight local foodon their menu. During the pandemic, CentroNíaleveraged funding from the National Farm toSchool Network COVID-19 Relief Fund andthe Mid-Atlantic Food Resilience and AccessCoalition (MAFRAC) to initiate several newprograms to connect families to nutritious, localfood.

CentroNia’s programs included distribution ofgift cards for the Crossroads Community FoodNetwork Farmer’s Market so families couldaccess local foods in their neighborhood.CentroNía’s DC location distributed 5,600 lbs oflocal produce to 280 families from July toOctober 2020. The Maryland location distributedUSDA Farm to Families food boxes to 55 familiesover a 10-week period in June. These local foodsinitiatives were layered into the many otherservices that CentroNía provided for familiesincluding access to USDA Summer Food ServiceProgram (SFSP) meals, grocery gift cards forpeople who tested positive for COVID-19, food

cards and financial resources for families withundocumented status, and diaper distribution.Connecting families to local markets andcontinuing to build relationships with producersand mission driven distribution partners, even intimes of crisis, addresses immediate communityneeds, and moves CentroNia towards long termgoals of increasing local food procurement fortheir programs.

The programs discussed above are only asample of the innovative ways school systems andtheir partners across the U.S. adapted existingfarm-to-school initiatives or built new ones tokeep students and their communities fed duringthe Spring and Summer of 2020. By the fall, itbecame clear that the need for supplementalfresh, local food was not a short-term need andmany of these programs are now looking forways to sustain, expand, or transition to longterm operations.

Concordia Charter School’s community foodshare program existed before COVID-19 andwill continue to operate after the pandemic.Rachel Gomez Acosta, Wellness Coordinator forConcordia Charter School, says there has been anuptick in interest due to the pandemic as well asan increase in additional financial support. Anincreasing number of families used theirPandemic EBT benefits to purchase the school’sfood shares. Acosta anticipates this trend tocontinue as long as Pandemic EBT is availableand hopes that families will continue to purchasethe local food shares now that they’ve had theopportunity to purchase and use the freshproduce. In addition to their long-termpartnership with Sun Produce, collaborationswith other local organizations have helpedposition the program for long term

5

Caring Early & Often with Local Food

From Emergency Need to Long Term Solutions

Start as you mean to go on

implementation. The local SNAP-Ed implementing Cooperative Extension agencyprovides food safety and handwashing trainingfor students working on the project. They alsofurnish nutrition education materials, recipes, andstorage tips to include in the CSA shares. Thefood share program is also well integrated intoschool activities. It supports the school wellnesspolicy goals of creating healthy foodenvironments, offering nutrition educationopportunities for children and families, andestablishing community partnerships that supportschool health initiatives. Recognizing the success and impact of theirSummer Share Program, Mill City Grows andLowell Public Schools Food and NutritionService are developing a long-term strategy forintegrating the school garden share with year-round, city-wide fresh food initiatives. The goalis to create a suite of wrap-around programmingbetween food shares available at summer mealsites, winter/fall CSA and farmers markets, andother food programs such as virtual cooking andgarden education classes. While the MCGcommunity CSA shares are available to purchase,about half of participants are supported by SNAPand WIC benefits, and many use incentive fundsthrough the Massachusetts Healthy IncentivesProgram (HIP). By 2022, MCG anticipates beingable to defray most of the school garden sharecosts with SNAP benefits from the programsthroughout the year.

SFPC Director, Liz Wills-O’Gilvie, is eager toreplicate the food box program in 2021 but isclear-eyed in observing that “What everymarginalized community needs is funding forthese programs.” Throughout 2020, the programprovided 450 local produce boxes a week, with3,000 families participating on a regular rotatingbasis. Based on the cost and volume of the 2020program, SFPC estimates they need to raise$150,000 to continue to serve these and other

families through 2021-22. If funding is securedthe World Farmers cooperative has committed tocontinuing to deliver boxes to Springfield, andthe program could expand to include additionallocal farmers. In the meantime, SFPC continuestheir work to build gardens, distribute seeds,amend school wellness policies, distribute freshfood, and advocate for policies that willcontribute to long term solutions for a moreresilient and racially just food system.“Everything we do, I’m thinking about whatpolicy could come from this,” Liz says.

For others, while the initial emergency foodshare programs may have ended, the work offeeding their community is hardly over. Thegrocery bag program coordinated by the DCFood Policy Council ended at the end ofOctober for a number of reasons, including theend of public funding and the seasonality of localproduce. However, the city and its Food PolicyCouncil have continued to offer other ongoingprograms such as their GetHelp Hotline, whichprovides home-delivered shelf stable food itemsto residents who are having trouble accessingfood due to COVID-19. “I think we knowwhere the emergency food needs to go now andit helped us realize where there are residents wehaven’t been connecting with and serving fully,”says DC Food Policy Council’s Tariq Sheriff,“Part of our big struggle is the amount of longterm funding it takes to keep these thingsoperating.” With DC public schools fluctuatingbetween in-person, remote, and hybrid learning(as of the end of 2020 they had returned to 100%remote), the city will determine if they willreinvest in a grocery bag program in the Spring

6

Long term solutions need long term support

"Everything we do, I'mthinking about what policycould come from this."

Liz Wills-O'Gilvie, SFPC Director

of 2021. Since they created a training programand operating manual for the grocery bagprogram in 2020, Tariq believes it will berelatively easy to get the program up and runningagain with little notice.

As the examples presented in this brief clearlydemonstrate, existing farm to school andcommunity-based food security networks wereable to mobilize quickly in a time of acute needto not only feed their communities, but alsoprovide healthful foods that further contribute tothe resilience of the local economy. Theseinitiatives also underscore the importance ofbuilding and maintaining long-term collaborativenetworks between local food system stakeholdersand community food security networks. Byconnecting school and childcare systems, localfood organizations, local and state governments,and emergency food networks, these programswere able to quickly deliver targeted support tochildren, their families, and other vulnerablemembers of the community. Throughcollaboration, quick action, and firsthandknowledge of the specific dynamics and needs oftheir community, these initiatives addressed acuteneeds of those disproportionately impacted by thepandemic and underserved by federal initiatives.A key question for food system leaders movingforward is how to build on the farm to schoolsuccesses realized prior to the pandemic andleverage the invaluable lessons learned about thevital links between local food systems andemergency food security during this time ofadaptation and innovation.

7

Conclusion

8

Building Better Beyond: opportunities and considerations

Key Considerations for ConnectingCommunities to Local Food through Schools

and ECE Sites

Partnerships - The height of an emergency isnot the time to start developing partnershipsbetween schools, community organizations, andlocal producers. Strong, well developedpartnerships established before the COVID-19emergency helped communities pivot to connectfamilies to food in creative ways. Partnershipsacross sectors highlighted in these examplesinclude farmers markets, food hubs and farmerscooperatives, Extension agencies, and food banksand pantries.

Funding - Because of the uncertainty ofemergency funding streams, many organizationslayered different funding sources to support theirinitiatives and create sustainability. Fundingranged from federal emergency support,including CARES Act funding and Farmers toFamilies program, national non-profit fundingstreams such as No Kid Hungry and NationalFarm to School Network, local philanthropic andfoundation funders, and individual communitydonations.

Distribution - A frequent challenge ofemergency and local food distribution is the “lastmile” to families. One advantage of workingthrough a K-12 or early care site are the existingdistribution pathways these programs are using toget meals to children. Communities were able tomeet people where they were by leveragingexisting food distribution sites, developingcommunity pick up sites, and using door-to-doordrop off, often in partnership with the district

transportation departments and the help of schoolbus drivers. Partnering with other organizations,such as non-profits or food hubs, that haveexisting delivery infrastructure also helpedprograms reach families.

Leveraging federal nutrition programs - Inaddition to leveraging the infrastructure andpartnerships of child nutrition programs, manyprograms also encouraged participants to useSupplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP) and Double Up Food Bucks to purchaselocal food boxes and CSA shares. Pandemic EBTdistributions meant more families were utilizingSNAP dollars. These programs createdopportunities for those SNAP dollars to be usedon local food and to be reinvested into the localcommunity.

Educational programs of Kentucky Cooperative Extension serve all people regardless of economic or social status and will notdiscriminate on the basis of race, color, ethnic origin, national origin, creed, religion, political belief, sex, sexual orientation,gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, marital status, genetic information, age, veteran status, or physical or mental

disability.

The findings and conclusions in this innovation brief are those of the authors and shouldnot be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or

policy. USDA is an equal opportunity provider, employer, and lender.

For more information and resources on Localand Regional Food Systems Response to COVID:Building Better Beyond, visit:https://lfscovid.localfoodeconomics.com/ where you can sign up for our project listserv,read other innovation briefs, and check outresources put forth by other sectors of the localand regional food system.

This innovation brief was created in fulfillment ofa cooperative research agreement between theMarketing Services Division of the AgriculturalMarketing Service of the United StatesDepartment of Agriculture (USDA AMS), theUniversity of Kentucky, Colorado StateUniversity and Penn State University.

Special thanks to the following organizationsfor contributing to this innovation brief:

Citation: Leighton, Hannah & Stephens, Lacy &Collins, Sadé E. & Brislen, Lilian (2020). PreKand K-12 Schools as Access Points for Local FoodBoxes/CSA/Grocery Bags. University of KentuckyAEC Extension Publication. LSF-IB-13, April.

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Thanks for reading!

Reviewed by: Yvette Garcia, USDA AMS and AmericoVega-Labiosa, USDA AMS.Formatted by: Emily Spencer, University of Kentucky

Special ThanksRachel Gomez Acosta, Concordia Charter SchoolGiuliana Cappucci, Mill City GrowsMacayla Cote, Mill City GrowsAndrea Lopez, CentroNiaMaggie Nowak, Mill City GrowsTariq Sheriff, DC Food Policy CouncilLiz Wills-O'Gilvie, Springfield Food Policy Council