#foodcorps

[fongoolfuckyou]

Coin and Food Corps

Live at Purgatory

03/04/22

[meadowslark]

“Policy news! This week, legislators introduced the Farm to School Act of 2021, a bill expanding the scope & funding for the @USDA’s Farm to School Grant Program. Read more from our friends @FarmtoSchool: https://t.co/jdfMJMEeFo”

https://t.co/jdfMJMEeFo 

The USDA Farm to School Grant Program provides funds on a competitive basis to schools, farmers, nonprofits, and local, state and tribal government entities to help schools procure local foods for school meals and to support activities like school gardens, hands-on science lessons, and new food taste tests. The program was originally funded as part of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 and includes $5 million in annual mandatory funding.

Since the program’s inception in 2013, USDA has awarded over $52 million through Farm to School Grants, funding a total of 719 projects across all 50 States, the District of Columbia, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico, reaching almost 21 million students in 47,000 schools. In recent years, the program has benefited from temporary funding boosts through annual appropriations. The Farm to School Act of 2021 would allow more of these impactful projects to be realized by:

Increasing annual mandatory funding to $15 million and increase the maximum grant award to $250,000,

Prioritizing grant proposals that engage beginning, veteran and socially disadvantaged farmers and serve high-need schools,

Fully including early care and education sites, summer food service sites and after school programs, and

Increasing access among Native and tribal schools to traditional foods, especially from tribal producers

And of additional interest the proposed expansion of the program is bi-partisan. My respects to Republican Jeff Fortenberry of NE for his sponsorship. 

[parlorwallsmusic]

Seeee you July 15 ;)

[quixotic--s]

I haven’t been this excited about something in a while I think this might really be the next step after I graduate and I’m gonna ask the psychic about it tomorrow. It combines a lot of the things that I care about all into one - healthy eating, education, children, schools, and making healthy food accessible to areas who don’t have it available. I think doing that for a year could 1. Help me understand my privilege better 2. Educate children about healthy eating 3. Help low income children and families access healthy food 4. Help me network with schools around the country 5. Be a way for me to travel the country 6. Have benefits like some income (not a lot) but also health insurance and stuff for a year before I do something else 7. A way to plant gardens and get hands on in nature 8. Grow grow grow!!!!

[dreowyn]

Face Plant: 7 Percent of Americans Think Brown Cows Make Chocolate Milk

Face Plant: 7 Percent of Americans Think Brown Cows Make Chocolate Milk

And to think these people may vote. From Yahoo: It might seem like a “Saturday Night Live” bit, but it’s true nonetheless. An online survey from the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy found that seven percent of American adults think brown cows make chocolate milk. As The Washington Post reports, it’s a nationally representative survey — meaning the results are about equal to 16.4 million people (a…

View On WordPress

[ladybugevents]

Today I joined up with #captainplanet to help train and inspire #prekteachers with the wonderful Kyla and #foodcorps educators. I am so happy to work with trail blazers I admire, like Kyla, and share the fun stuff I get to do. Big thanks to the #wyldecenter and #SoulShine for investing in me and helping me to grow into a mindful #missladybug. #ladybugfun #gowylde

[newstfionline]

7 Lessons In Persuasion From People Who Get Kids To Eat Veggies

Laura Vanderkam, Fast Company, March 28, 2016

Trying to win over a tough customer? The FoodCorps knows what you’re going through. Founded in 2009, this organization sends young service members to schools in disadvantaged communities with the goal of getting kids to eat more vegetables.

They have their work cut out for them. “We have a culture that is really great at marketing unhealthy food to all of us and to kids in particular,” says Curt Ellis, the cofounder and chief executive officer of FoodCorps. Our bodies love salty and sugary tastes, and kids are wary of new foods.

Some research finds that kids need to be exposed to foods a dozen times before they’ll accept them, which is a problem for lower-income families who can’t afford to waste a dozen servings of kale. “If you have a limited budget to spend on food for your kids, you’re not going to buy foods your kids might spit out,” says Ellis.

Yet new research from FoodCorps finds that of students exposed to 10 hours of its programming, 7 in 10 will improve their attitude toward vegetables. More than 40% tried new vegetables for the first time. Even kids who were okay with vegetables liked them more and tried more varieties.

Here’s how the FoodCorps wins their tough customers, with lessons for anyone trying to become more persuasive.

1. Involve your customers in the process. FoodCorps members don’t show PowerPoint slides on the merits of carrots and expect that to work. They involve kids in gardening, developing new recipes, and cooking. “You want to make it theirs as much as possible,” says Ashley Ingram, a FoodCorps member stationed in Mississippi. She’s been building a garden with help from everyone from an art class (they make signs) to a biology class (building one of the beds). She asks the kids what they’d like to see planted.

The reason? Kids who grow ingredients or cook a dish feel proud of themselves, and are more open to trying a bite. “It’s not about convincing someone you have the right idea,” says Ellis. “It’s about cocreating the idea with your partner in the first place.”

2. Meet them where they are. People are more open to new things when they’re anchored in something they know. Ellis describes how a FoodCorps member created a hummus “pizza,” made with a tortilla, hummus, and carrot circles standing in for pepperoni. “Getting kids excited to eat hummus is not an easy project but once you put that hummus in the shape of something they know and love, it is much more comfortable for them to make the leap to try it,” he says. Likewise, FoodCorps members have had success with altering ethnic dishes or comfort foods to make them healthier.

3. Get the cool kids on your side. Role models matter. FoodCorps members are young and hip, more like older siblings than authority figures. Ellis notes that one student gushed to her FoodCorps member that “you’re basically like Justin Bieber, but for vegetables.”

FoodCorps members have also been known to enlist influential children in their quests, carefully appointing “table captains” or “ambassadors” to ask kids to try new foods. Think about who your customers know, trust, and want to emulate, and get them to do the asking.

4. Make your offering fun. There’s a reason “eat your spinach” means “suck it up.” Bland and limp greens are no one’s idea of a good time. But humans don’t do well with suffering long term. People are more likely to be persuaded if they view what you’re advocating as fun. FoodCorps members aim to make healthy foods colorful and appetizing.

They also play with their food. A big hit? Using a bicycle-powered blender to make smoothies. The kids all want to hop on the bike to try it out. Corps members have also used juicy, inky beets as “stamps” for Valentine’s Day.

5. Accept small steps. If you set the bar for success low enough, anyone can give you something. You want to make it easy to say yes. FoodCorps would like to have kids fall in love with vegetables, but they give points for trying just a little bit. When people see themselves as successful, they often move up the ladder fast, from a nibble to a bite to savoring. The goal is to create momentum.

6. Be relentlessly positive. This is where most parents fail in the great veggie wars. Dinner features an argument over why the child hasn’t eaten her carrots, rather than elaborate praise for the tiny bite she took of a green bean. FoodCorps members have a saying: Don’t yuck my yum. Or as Ingram says with her students, “If we like it, great! If we don’t, let’s try something else!”

7. Spread what works. If different team members try different things, some will find more success than others. If you want to be persuasive, figure out what works and share those techniques widely. “Our Corps members are part of a really active social network with each other,” says Ellis. That’s how the beet stamp idea got spread. There’s no reason to reinvent the wheel when someone else has got a wheel that’s working great.

[onceuponawildflower]

How do we not have FoodCorps in Oregon?