By Carolyn Booth | Director of Development
A year ago we couldn’t have imagined the environment that we are currently living and working in today. I think there are many words we can use to describe 2020: awful, harrowing, never-ending, monotonous, sad, unreal, and the list could go on. For the Chef Ann Foundation, I think the word that comes to mind is CHANGE.
With the onset of COVID-19 in March 2020, the foundation’s work had to change and we had to act quickly. Our 2020 goals to support salad bar implementation in 250 schools, assessments in 5 districts, and onsite scratch-cooking support for all of our Get Schools Cooking districts were all quickly scratched (no pun intended). But school food teams needed help, so we pivoted to ensure that we could support their emergency response needs.
Because of your continued commitment to our mission and the ongoing financial contributions provided, our team was extremely motivated to continue the necessary work to keep school food reform moving forward. It was clear that we wanted and needed to jump in to support immediate relief efforts, and CAF’s 2020 goals changed to better support the new times we all lived in.
I am proud to share some of our most notable accomplishments that helped to support communities during this unusual time;
Emergency Response Support
When districts moved to virtual learning, they had to ensure kids still received school meals, which meant serving to-go through remote feeding stations. Our team focused on finding new ways to encourage school districts to keep scratch-cooking while navigating new challenges and constantly-changing environments.
Online resources for operational pivots:we added 30+ resources onThe Lunch Box website, including USDA guidance, emergency response plans from leading districts,meal kits, community marketing methods, to-go recipesand much more.
Scratch Cooking To-Go: one of the most challenging things in emergency feeding is identifying scratch cook recipes that can be easily packaged, transported, and stored until ready to eat. We worked directly with 20 of our district partners to help them continue to serve some fresh, scratch-cooked food. Additionally, Brandy Dreibelbis, our Director of School Food Operations, curated a list of the top recommended foods for districts to serve to-go style.
Hero Highlights: school food professionals needed to hear how others were doing things, and they deserved acknowledgement for their front line work. We were honored to feature 14 incredible school professionals, all focused on serving fresh food during remote feeding.
By Carolyn Booth | Foundations Relation Manager
By Carolyn | Director of Development
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