School districts are major institutional buyers of food in their communities. If we can shift their purchasing practices to focus on local and regional food, we can support and expand local, nutrient-rich food production AND provide healthier, fresh, whole foods to children. Please help F3 build free, online tools to help schools buy their food from growers in their communities and strengthen sustainable agriculture. Every donation will be MATCHED by Jack Johnson's All At Once Campaign!
In response to the childhood obesity epidemic and to the low nutritional value of most school food, the USDA instituted new standards for school meals. This means much more fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains! But schools that continue to buy food from mass national distributors are missing an opportunity to feed children nutrient-rich, ripe, delicious and seasonal food from their communities. They need help shifting their purchasing practices to local food!
F3 is developing a procurement module for The Lunch Box that will provide free tools and guides to help schools buy their food from regional growers. Shifting to sustainable purchasing practices means big changes for kitchen operations. Planning, pricing, ordering, transportation, storage and food preparation are all impacted. F3 knows how to make these changes and will show schools how! AND...every donation will be matched, doubling the impact of your gift!
Schools buy A LOT of food. They serve almost 41 million meals across the U.S. each school day! And food bought through conventional national systems travels 1,500 - 2,500 miles from farm to consumer. Compare that to locally or even regionally-purchased food and those miles add up. Not only are we helping to nourish children with nutrient-rich local food, we're also protecting the health of the planet by helping schools buy their food close to home and lower their carbon footprint.
This project has provided additional documentation in a PDF file (projdoc.pdf).
