New Funding for VT FEED and NOFA-VT!

Specialty Crop Block Grant program

VT FEED just received word that "Building Demand for Fruits and Vegetables in Vermont Schools" will be funded by the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets through the Specialty Crop Block Grant program! The goal of this 18-month pilot project is to explore increasing the viability of schools as a consistent market for Vermont fruits and vegetables by providing tools, training, and technical assistance to school food programs, teachers, and farmers. Specifically we'll be focusing on USDA's Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program (FFVP), promoting use of the program in classrooms and facilitating the process for using Vermont fruits and vegetables in the program. The FFVP allotment of funds for Vermont schools is over $1.8M. If schools used only 10% of the FFVP dollars to purchase Vermont produce each year, Vermont specialty crop producers would receive an additional $180,000 annually.

Vermont Community Foundation

FEED and NOFA-VT both received a $75,000 grants from the Vermont Community Foundation through their Food and Farm Initiative. FEED will use this grant to suppor the efforts of the Vermont Farm to School Network. NOFA-VT's grant will go to providing training and resources to farm to school constituents. Over the next 18 months NOFA-VT will continue to create systemic change in Vermont’s school meal programs with a focus on farm to school (FTS) programming year round. Our goals are to create lasting and positive impact on the amount of local food served in school meals and the food security of Vermont’s limited-income children. We will do the following to meet these goals:

• train schools to use our Values-Based Tiered-Buying resources. We will roll out the resources we developed to help schools clearly articulate the values of their local purchasing programs, set goals and commitments to grow these programs, and market their programs to build greater consumer awareness.
• work with existing FTS programs to extend into the summer. We will work with school food service to procure more local product and also for students to connect to Vermont agriculture.
• pilot summer meals on the weekend. Summer is a time of great food insecurity for Vermont’s limited-income youth. Summer meal programs are one way to address food insecurity, but currently summer meals are not offered on weekends. We will work with Hunger Free Vermont to pilot summer meals on the weekends at two farmers’ markets. We will also connect families with ways they can access local food with their food benefits, resulting in participants "seeing Vermont’s food as their own."