April is National Garden Month, and the Food and Nutrition Service Office of Community Food Systems is celebrating the great work our Farm to School Grantees are doing to support feeding and educating communities through school gardens.
Typically the start of spring warrants celebration for the Urban Agriculture team at Isles Inc., a 2019 Farm to School Implementation Grantee. Each year, Isles works with teachers and students at 22 schools in Trenton, New Jersey to prepare school gardens for planting and growing. It is a time of year when teachers and kids emerge from their classroom wide-eyed with wonder as they prepare to get their hands dirty, cultivate their gardens, and learn a little more about their connection to the Earth.
Just as New Jersey’s growing season was getting underway in March of 2020, the pandemic brought on many challenges. Trenton schools, usually bustling with activity, were empty and their school gardens deserted. Fortunately, these hurdles gave way to new ideas and opportunities. Trenton schools became emergency meal distribution sites to provide the community with access to quality food. Isles’ team began thinking out of the box- what if school gardens were repurposed to grow food for students and their families? With this vision in mind, Isles’ team and community gardeners began cultivating three school gardens. By May, as families arrived to pick up meals, they were greeted with fresh produce, including lettuce, kale, collards, carrots, and variety of herbs, straight out of their school’s garden. Kids excitedly selected produce to take home and enjoy, recounting with pride their experience growing food during the previous school year.
As schools are reopening this spring, Isles hopes to have students back in the garden growing produce to take home. Though 2020 was a unlike any other, Isles was able to highlight the importance of school gardens and demonstrate the role they can play in nourishing their community.
To learn more about what Isles is doing to support Trenton schools and families this year, check out the webinar recorded on April 22, 2021: “Resiliency Through Community Gardening”. During this webinar hosted by the FEMA Region 2 National Preparedness Division, Isles offers ways to get started in community agriculture and discuss the ways it can promote resiliency through food-security, environmental stewardship, and community health.
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USDA Issues Pandemic Flexibilities for Schools and Day Care Facilities through June 2022 to Support Safe Reopening and Healthy, Nutritious Meals
On April 20, 2021, USDA issued a broad range of flexibilities to allow school meal programs and childcare institutions across the country to return to serving healthy meals in fall 2021 as part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s commitment to reopen schools safely. Several meal service flexibilities that enable social distancing are now extended through June 30, 2022. The waivers continue the Administration’s commitment to provide safe, healthy meals free of charge to children as the pandemic continues to threaten the food and nutrition security of our most vulnerable. This announcement comes in addition to a variety of actions taken recently by USDA to strengthen food security, drive down hunger, and put a greater emphasis on the importance of nutrition. Read the full press release HERE.
USDA Is Seeking Public Comments
On April 21, 2021, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that the USDA is seeking comments on a Department-wide effort to improve and reimagine the supply chains for the production, processing and distribution of agricultural commodities and food products. USDA is taking this action in response to Executive Order 14017, America’s Supply Chains, signed by President Biden on Feb. 24, 2021. The request for comments is published in the Federal Register and the comment period will close on May 21, 2021.
Mark Your Calendar: 2021 National Agriculture in the Classroom Conference
Hundreds of educators from around the country will learn how to use agricultural concepts to teach reading, writing, math, science, social studies, and more at the National Agriculture in the Classroom (NAITC) Conference “Fields of Dreams” to be held in person and virtually June 29-July 1, at the Iowa Events Center in Des Moines, IA.
In-person and virtual attendees will have the opportunity to hear from keynote speakers (Dr. Anton Treuer and Nicole Jolly) who will talk about infusing equity tools into classroom instruction and how to use storytelling to describe how food items are grown and the farmers who produce them. To learn more about the event agenda and registration please visit the NAITC Conference website.
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Save the Date: National Children & Youth Garden Symposium
Registration is open for the 2021 National Children & Youth Garden Symposium (NCYGS)! The event will be hosted virtually by the American Horticultural Society from July 7-9. Speakers will promote this year’s theme, Youth Empowerment, and will give educators both the inspiration and the tools they need to discover and nurture the passion within a child and create the space and support for a child to pursue that passion. The professional development content will be offered as a collection of live and pre-recorded webinars with nearly forty peer-led lectures and workshops viewable on demand.
Registration includes access to all live and pre-recorded session content which will be available until June 30, 2022. Learn more and register for the NCYGS event HERE.
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Open Enrollment at HealthCare.gov
The COVID-19 public health and economic crisis is bigger than any other we’ve seen in our lifetimes — leaving millions of families struggling to afford food and other necessities. In addition to the urgent crisis of food insecurity – with as many as 30 million adults and 14 million children struggling to get enough to eat – millions of Americans are experiencing new health problems during this pandemic. As part of his all-of-government approach to addressing the current crisis, President Biden has created an emergency special enrollment period to allow individuals and families to apply and enroll in the coverage they need. People seeking health insurance can go to HealthCare.gov right now to learn more.
Virtual Food Celebrations
In March 2021, the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) published the Virtual Harvest Celebrations Innovation Brief which documents the ways in which local food systems responded to COVID-19. The brief features two virtual Crunch events, which provided opportunities for students to learn about agriculture, taste new-to-them varieties, and celebrate local producers. Holding the Crunch events virtually allows for more students to participate, and for local food systems groups to engage high-level partners, such as State commissioners of agriculture. To learn more about the innovative ways schools hosted food celebrations, access the brief HERE.
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