Office of Food Systems Resilience Quarterly Newsletter (February 2024)

Office of Food Systems Resilience | Quarterly Newsletter | February 2024

County Council unanimously approved $11.06M in food security funding through Special Appropriation #24-37 in December 2023, at the request of County Executive Elrich. Since the passage of the Special Appropriation, the Office of Food Systems Resilience has been working closely with the Office of Grants Management (OGM), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), and the Office of Procurement to launch several new initiatives aligned with the recommendations of the Strategic Plan to End Childhood Hunger.

In January, the OFSR launched three new grant programs:

• FY24 School Based Food Assistance Grant Program: The OFSR partnered with MCPS to collect information from schools regarding food security support needs, receiving responses from 45 schools that indicated a need for new or expanded programs to support more than 7,100 total students/families. The OFSR concurrently solicited grant proposals from providers that are experienced in and capable of providing food assistance at school sites, and received 10 applications, with total funding requests exceeding $860,000. Final funding decisions are currently underway; $480,000 in total funding will be awarded to selected programs which are anticipated to run from March through June 2024.
• FY24 Food as Medicine Grant Program: This grant opportunity will support pediatric healthcare providers with the capacity to screen patients for food insecurity and connect identified children and families with a food as medicine style intervention, such as a produce prescription program. The program prioritizes funding for applicants that partner with local farms and food businesses, and/or community-based food assistance providers to connect patients with healthy food. Final funding decisions are currently being made; $450,000 in total funding will be distributed to awarded programs which will run from March through November 2024.
• FY24 SNAP Outreach Grant Program: This program is intended to foster capacity-building for community-based organizations (CBOs) that are designated by the Maryland Department of Human Services to conduct outreach to Montgomery County residents in relation to applying for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). This funding will support expanded outreach, application support, and enrollment assistance to Montgomery County families that are eligible for SNAP benefits. This $200,000 in grant funding is focused on increasing benefits enrollment amongst families with children ages 0-5, as this population of children is more difficult to reach through traditional school-based interventions. Awarded programs will run for one year, from March 2024 through March 2025.

Two additional grant programs will be launching later this spring:

• FY24 Food System Infrastructure Grant Program: $230,000 in total funds will be awarded to support County partners that are engaged in both food security work and food recovery and/or local food production for the purchase and installation of cold storage infrastructure, which will build capacity to safely store and distribute local food to residents in underserved communities; and
• FY24 Resident and Community Gardening Grant Program: $200,000 in total funds will be available to expand access for residents to food production and education opportunities, and build capacity of resident and community gardens to support access to local and culturally appropriate foods.

Each of these grant programs align with the OFSR’s core values of being equitable, systems-focused, innovative and data-driven. Awardees will be required to collect mid-cycle and end-of-cycle metrics and report on project progress in alignment with established performance plans. The OFSR is designing robust data collection platforms that will measure the impact of these initiatives and inform future programming, to ensure that efforts are reaching children and households in underserved communities. Technical assistance will be offered to awardees to ensure compliance with data collection and reporting requirements and consistency across programs. 

More than 50 members of the food security community attended the first Food Security Community
Town Hall on Tuesday, February 13th to learn more about the County’s post-COVID food security
funding strategy. County Executive Marc Elrich presented an overview of the strategy to attendees
and answered questions from audience members.

The OFSR has been fostering relationships with a variety of partners to facilitate access to County- and community-level data that will inform existing and future programming, as well as to establish a holistic understanding of all food-related investments and achieve our goal of making data-driven decisions. Part of this data landscape assessment includes the results of the 2023 Food Assistance Provider Survey, which the OFSR will use to inform County policymaking and post-COVID food security funding strategies. More than 85 food assistance providers responded to the survey in the fall of 2023 with information regarding the format and frequency of their services, reach to County residents, and staffing and infrastructure capacity, among other details. The OFSR has already leveraged this data to implement one component of the post COVID-19 food security strategy in launching the FY24 Food Staples Partner Grant Program with Manna Food Center. This grant opportunity will be open through Monday, March 4th, and is intended to distribute food via Manna Food Center to smaller food assistance providers in a more equitable and sustainable manner. The performance period for this grant program will be from April 2024 through September 2024, and includes more robust data collection and reporting requirements that will strengthen and support our County's capacity to connect residents with adequate and culturally-appropriate food resources.

The OFSR had the opportunity to visit the Capital Kosher Pantry, which provides culturally relevant fresh foods and pantry staples to clients multiple times per week in Silver Spring.

The OFSR is also working closely with DHHS to implement the other components of the Special Appropriation, including allocating increased funds for Capital Area Food Bank Food Staples Program partners and supporting the creation of new SNAP Navigator positions in DHHS focused on benefits outreach and application assistance to families in partnership with MCPS Community Schools liaisons. The OFSR is partnering with the Planning, Accountability, and Customer Service (PACS) team in DHHS to identify households to participate in the first iteration of the County’s Retail Food Access program; eligible households include those with at least one child aged 0-17 that have incomes below the self-sufficiency standard but are ineligible for federal nutrition assistance programs. This program is expected to launch by May, and will reach an estimated 2,000 County households at risk of food insecurity.

The OFSR has been actively engaging with partner organizations and agencies to inform and move forward our projects, programs, and food system goals. The OFSR's "Interagency Food System Coordination Convening" and "Government Leaders Collaborative on Food System Priorities" have been meeting on a bi-monthly basis since November, bringing together more than 65 colleagues representing 26 different agencies in Montgomery County government to build connectivity and align work-flows around food system initiatives, collaborate in the development of food system resilience emergency plans, and generate new ideas to improve community access and awareness of local food resources. This interagency coordination has bolstered new partnerships and facilitated exciting initiatives, including a shared effort with the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DOCR) to leverage the insights of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) in Montgomery County. The GFPP will begin an analysis of the food service operations at the DOCR facility in Boyds this summer, which will help to inform next steps related to local, sustainable food procurement in all County institutions moving forward.

Members of the OFSR’s Government Leaders Collaborative on Food System Priorities met in November and January to discuss opportunities for partnership related to food security, economic opportunity, climate adaptation, and emergency planning topics.

Additionally, the OFSR has been engaged in the establishment of the first Resilience, Education, Action, Climate, and Habitat (REACH) Hub in Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) at A. Mario Loiderman Middle School. This project, which is funded in part through the Special Appropriation, is being led by MCPS and the Charles Koiner Center for Urban Farming with the goals of building climate resiliency while expanding food-related learning and teaching opportunities for students and school staff.

The OFSR continues to be actively engaged in a variety of partnerships and initiatives at the state level and throughout the region, including:

• Leadership and advocacy through the Maryland State SNAP Coalition and Maryland Food System Resiliency Council (FSRC), including Director Heather Bruskin chairing the FSRC’s Communication and Coordination committee;
• Upcoming presentations to the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and the Maryland Department of Environment’s upcoming “Food Summit 2024”; and
• A research partnership with Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy to develop a “Food Insecurity Index” for Montgomery County, which will allow the OFSR and our partners to better understand and address food insecurity within our communities.

Over the coming months, the OFSR encourages our partners and supporters to follow and engage in our work by:

• Attending a Community Lunch at the Executive Office Building Cafeteria (101 Monroe St, Rockville) on the third Thursday of the month, from 12-1pm;
• Applying for a grant program (if applicable and eligible) through the County’s Office of Grants Management Dashboard;
• Joining the Montgomery County Food Council’s Food Security Community Call on Monday, March 18th at 1pm for additional OFSR updates;
• Participate in the groundbreaking at the REACH Hub at A. Mario Loiderman Middle School on 4/22; and
• Following us on Instagram at @montgomerycountyofsr.

 

Questions? Please contact Catherine Nardi at catherine.nardi@montgomerycountymd.gov.