I just want to welcome and thank everyone for being with us. We have, um,
a very interesting webinar for y'all today. Farm to School,
the Common Thread in Successful Universal Meals Campaigns.
So we'll go ahead and get started. Before we get into deep,
I would like to turn it over to Valentina with the
community language co-op, who is going to be offering interpretation as well as a
message about language justice. So, Valentina.
Thank you very much, Ryan. Valentina
Hi everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon.
My name is Valentina and I'm here on behalf of Community Language Cooperative.
And I'm here to provide and guarantee your commitment to language justice.
Language justice is a type of simultaneous interpretation that seeks to create
spaces in which no one language is dominant. Spaces in which everyone can
participate with a language of their heart. So, to achieve this objective,
we'll be using Zoom's interpretation feature.
And what you will see in a couple of minutes is that a new little button that
looks like a globe will appear on the bottom bar of your screen. On that same bar
where you have the buttons for the microphone, the video, the chat, et cetera.
It'll be towards your right hand. When you see this new little button come up,
go ahead and click on it and select either English or Spanish as both the
language that you will be listening into and speaking into.
If you are joining the meeting on a phone or on a tablet,
you will find the same options for interpretation by clicking on the button with
the three little dots on the lower right hand corner of your screen,
this button reads more.
And even if you are a monolingual English speaker,
you should select a language channel. This is for all monolingual speakers,
whether in English or in Spanish. Only if you are bilingual,
you can choose to ignore this service.
A quick reminder for those of you that do prefer to use English,
Spanish is 20 to 25% longer than English. So please be aware of your speed,
and if you have any questions or any issues whatsoever with this technology,
please let the whole group know by means of the chatbox so that we can work
together to address it.
Thank you so much for having me here.
We can go ahead and start the interpretation channels now.
Ryan: Thank you so much, Valentina.
And I am going to kick it over to my colleague Cassandra Bull.
Cassandra: Great, thank you Ryan and Valentina for kicking us off.
My name is Cassandra Bull.
I am the policy intern at National Farm to School Network.
I will be giving a presentation and then Ryan,
who's introduced himself, will be moderating our discussion.
So we are here with a stellar group of advocates.
Our panel today features Abby Halperin from the Center for Ecoliteracy.
She's representing California. Betsy Rosenbluth
from Vermont FEED slash Shelburne Farms is representing Vermont.
And then we have Ryan Parker, who is
from FoodCorps representing Maine.
So I'm going to introduce our organization and our "Who's
at the Table School Meals Campaign."
Then share some highlights from recent research we've been conducting
on Universal Meals policies.
And then we'll move into a discussion with our panelists, and
then finish off with an audience q and a.
Great.
So many of you probably know about the National Farm to School Network,
but our mission is to increase access to local food and nutrition
education, to improve children's health, strengthen family farms,
and cultivate vibrant communities.
Our core functions are that we are a hub for information,
for networking and for advocacy,
and we connect people to resources to each other,
and to policies.
We are guided by our call to action,
which is 100% of communities will hold power in a racially
just food system.
And this call to action is guided by our six community values.
They are economic justice, environmental justice,
health impact, racial equity, workers' rights,
and animal welfare.
And so this call to action and our values lead really well into
our Who's at the Table School Meals Campaign.
And so this is because we believe we need a system of school
meals that serves all kids and also values the people who get,
food to the table. So during this campaign,
we've been creating resources to support what we call values
aligned universal meals advocacy.
And so what this means is that it's great to have access to school meals,
but if they're not sourced locally,
if they're not nutrient dense, scratch cooked,
that support adequate labor rights and animal welfare purchased
from historically marginalized farms and so on,
we think that we're missing the mark. So universal meals,
if supported by the right policies,
can create a just and resilient food system for all.
So this graphic shows how these three categories,
local universal meals and values-based work together to
create a just and resilient food system.
And so this is how it all sort of flows together.
Universal meals increases access and lessens administrative
burden, which increases
school participation in lunch,
which increases the need for ingredients,
which hopefully will be purchased from local farms,
and increase opportunities for scratch cooking and for students to become more
connected to the food system. And then we have this third bubble,
which is community values.
And so we're not interested in perpetuating the status quo of
school food, right?
We need our food to be produced in a way that supports all of these values.
And when we say values-based purchasing, we don't mean all of these at once.
That's really, you know, hard to do.
So we want values to come from the communities that are doing the purchasing.
What it really means is that we want decisions about food
purchases to be made beyond, you know,
price and even geographic location as the bottom line.
So to back it up,
as of July 2023, thirty-one
states and DC have introduced policies in some way to
support universal meals.
And seven states now have permanent policies,
and three states have temporary policies or had temporary
policies.
These are the seven states with permanent universal meals programs.
They are California, Colorado, Maine, Michigan,
Minnesota, New Mexico, and Vermont.
And collectively these seven states
represent 9.9 million students,
which is about 20% of all US students. Which, you know,
pre-pandemic, we didn't have any states with Universal Meals policies.
So that's really amazing.
And now I'm sort of going to dive into our analysis and
something that we saw right away is that there's a strong connection between
farm to school and Universal Meals policies.
So if there's one thing I want you to take away from this conversation,
it's that all states with permanent universal meals policies right now,
these seven,
they already had strong policies in place that support local food
purchasing. In our world,
we call these local food purchasing incentives. And so these seven states,
I included the, the names to each of their incentive programs,
which you can look back on and go to their websites later.
So we were seeing this strong relationship and decided to dive deeper,
and to do four case studies.
So our case studies are Maine, Vermont,
Colorado, and California. And we interviewed advocates,
we read all of the legislation and lots of
secondary sources to create these.
They all have relatively the same structure.
So they have a policy overview, a coalition overview,
discussions of unique policy features,
relevant farm to school policies and how they relate,
top tips from advocates, and any insights on implementation
if they're at that stage.
So two that are available now are Vermont and Maine,
and then coming soon in August will be Colorado's and
California's.
So just some insights when you look at the four case studies in aggregate and
make comparisons, are that, one,
each state had diverse universal meals policy features. Two,
each state had unique coalition and advocacy strategies,
but many advocates shared similar tips and had similar experiences
in implementation.
And then the third is that farm to school and/or
policies that support values aligned purchasing are crucial for
universal meals advocacy.
So I'm going to get a little wonky for a few minutes, but bear with me.
If it's not your thing, we will come back. Um,
I really wanted to tease out the diverse
policy features that I was seeing.
And the first is that there's different ways to establish a universal meals
program.
So California established theirs in their big education budget
bill that funds lots of things beyond just school food.
Whereas Colorado's was actually voted in by public ballot measures.
So Prop FF. And then Maine and Vermont went through the
typical bill, single bill legislation process. But,
Vermont's was introduced by a bipartisan committee.
It's pretty cool...of agriculture.
This slide sort of teases out that nuance further in a
graphic way.
But first I wanted to say that all of these four states,
their final policy was not how it looked in its first introduction,
and that's really nuanced,
but I wanted to just say it and put a pin in it for later.
But Vermont, for example,
passed a temporary policy as a strategic decision and then
passed a permanent one,
whereas the other states all started out with permanent policies.
The next sort of distinguished aspects between
these four states is that all of them require maximization
of federal funding. But Maine just encourages it.
And that's contextual.
All of them mandate universal meals
to any school that participates in the National School Lunch Program
except Colorado's, which is optional, which is wild to me.
And Colorado also creates a new tax structure to fund its program,
which is really interesting. And
three out of the four states took steps to increase access
by eliminating the reduced price category of school meals before
going into full blown universal meals policies.
So Colorado,
Maine, and Vermont first eliminated the reduced price category to
expand access.
And then this sort of teases out complimentary programs that
were introduced alongside Universal Meals policies.
California's is the most robust,
and that's partially because it was a budget bill, right? It's a big bill.
But it included funding for kitchen infrastructure,
food service staff training, increase in meal reimbursement
that the state provided. It also had the...
the General Budget
Bill had the farm to school incubator grant established one year prior,
and they funded evaluation,
which is really cool, for their Universal meals program. In Colorado,
in the one main bill,
it included a local food purchasing grant,
so it expanded on the one they already had, which was a pilot.
It increased wages for food nutrition staff.
It included grants for technical assistance.
And for any school who has that local food purchasing grant,
they need to establish a student-parent advisory board,
to receive those funds. Maine's had none of this.
It was very sleek, very clean,
simple to understand, three pages in length,
and that was a strategic decision as well.
And then Vermont's was similarly quite clean,
but it's worth noting that it was introduced in one bill, The
Farm Fresh School Meals for All Bill,
which included the incentive as well as Universal Meals.
Those two bills were separated, and then the incentive was passed
one year prior, and then Universal Meals was passed after that.
The next finding is that each state
had sort of different coalition structures.
So most of them had one main organizer of the
steering committee of the coalition.
They all had formal or informal tiers of the coalition,
so a leadership or a steering committee,
and then a general membership.
They worked with national partners, and they built the capacity of their
coalition as much as possible for advocacy.
Unique elements were that Maine's steering committee was quite
small and nimble,
whereas Colorado's was broad intentionally with different
racial and ethnic demographics, and represented different
geographic regions of the state.
Vermont had a really interesting visioning process before
any advocacy had taken place.
Colorado funded their steering committee members,
and they also focused on language justice and provided interpretation.
Advocacy tips were really the same
mostly focused on hunger, and youth, and storytelling,
have a broad coalition, work on clear messaging.
A lot of them targeted their research to different audiences.
They all thought bipartisan support was crucial.
They worked with lobbyists.
They all had really great legislative champions that were already in
relationship with their coalitions,
and they use different partners' strengths to reach out to specific audiences.
So for implementation, a lot of them found, who had it,
that meal participation increased and stigma of
eating lunch was reduced, which cannot be understated.
But similar challenges were income form completion,
longer lunch lines... oh, income form completion, it dropped, right?...
Longer lunch lines, which means less mealtime,
strained capacity because of the longer lunch lines, and strains on
infrastructure.
My last finding is that farm to school and/or
values aligned purchasing were crucial for Universal Meals advocacy.
And so I said it before, but all states had
incentive policies in place prior to Universal Meals.
And what this means is that they were already well poised with these
partnerships in place to then mobilize for Universal Meals.
Farm to school advocates
also took on leadership roles in Universal Meals coalitions,
and then lastly, is including these policies in either
messaging or including it within the bill itself,
strengthened advocacy because
you could talk about the virtuous cycle of school meals,
which Betsy will talk about soon.
But basically it supported...
you can talk about economic development, workers' rights,
improved meal quality...
and this gained bipartisan public and policymaker support.
And it broadened the coalition membership overall to include farm
to school aspects.
And my recommendations for advocates are to integrate farm
to school and values aligned purchasing in advocacy and in
legislation if possible.,
Also, if possible, to include supports for implementation in
Universal Meals bills. And lastly,
to learn from successful coalitions through these case studies,
communities of practice, coalition websites,
and just having conversations with advocates.
So that's my presentation.
I'm going to hand it back to Ryan who will reintroduce the panelists,
and they have a really great set of questions to respond to.
Thanks.
Ryan: Thank you so, so much Cassandra. And thank you f
for your work in putting
together these case studies with advocates and coalitions and
your analysis here today. I'm happy to
to be talking with Abby, Betsy, and Ryan today. Of course,
Abby's representing California with the Center for Ecoliteracy.
Betsy is coming to us from Vermont with Vermont FEED and Shelburne Farms.
And Ryan Parker is coming from Maine
representing FoodCorps. So yeah, I would, you know...
I'm just so struck by the findings that Cassandra shared,
especially about how farm to school was an integral part of universal meals
campaigns. So my first question is gonna be for Betsy. We, you know,
we know that Vermont had really integrated farm to school messaging and the
universal meals advocacy. So could you maybe talk more to this and maybe
share any advice you'd give to states wondering if they should include farm to
school in their Universal Meals policies?
Betsy, you're on, you're on mute.
Betsy: Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. Thanks, Ryan.
Our legislative campaign was a lot stronger by integrating
all of our requests into Farm Fresh School Meals for All.
So it was Universal Meals, local food incentive,
and increased funding for the Farm to School and Early Childhood Grants Program.
And there were a couple of things. You know,
it allowed legislators, who were either interested in ag economy and
local purchasing to jump on board,
or those who are really focused on childhood hunger and health,
so it captured a wider spread.
It also increased the return on investment.
We talk a lot about as we're feeding kids,
we're benefiting farmers, that win-win.
And our senate Ag Chair, Agriculture Committee Chair, said at
one point,
you would only oppose this bill if you don't support children or farmers. So,
that helped. And... as advocates,
we weren't competing or letting legislators choose one issue over
another. And I would say that it really,
I can talk more about this,
but it really happened by coming together and having a shared vision.
We call it a happy ending. Like, what do we need? What needs to happen?
And then together, when we articulate that, we can be really clear.
It isn't either or, but it's these pieces together.
So we all were on the same page with this vision.
But it took a lot of relationship building. I mean,
it started back almost 10 years ago as a network when we were developing a
shared goal. And in that goal, it included Universal Meals,
local purchasing, and food system...
integrated food system education. And policy was a lever
that built demand for those things.
And so we've been working together along the way. And,
and just to elaborate on this, you know, we all talk about the virtuous cycle,
which in a very abbreviated way is, you know,
farm to school,
universal meals increases participation in school meals,
which...and the excitement, the kids are excited,
they connect with school meals, participation goes up,
the programs are more financially viable,
which gives them more money to buy more local food,
which increases participation and the excitement.
And it's this reinforcing cycle.
So we use this graphic on the screen a lot that show how these three,
components of the legislation really create the outcomes that we're all
seeking. And that was, you know, really successful. And, you know,
it showed up really well, like when we took leads...
each of the main partners, so that's Vermont FEED and, um,
SNA Vermont, and Hunger Free Vermont. And then a core
partner in the campaign was NEA, the Union.
And so while Hunger Free took the lead on Universal Meals, they'd get asked,
"well, how is this gonna help farmers?" And they could refer back to our campaign,
This Farm Feeds Vermont Kids --
We could drop that link in the chat -- and see that over a hundred farms across
the state were selling to early childhood programs and schools.
And we had data that showed that schools with Universal Meals were purchasing
more local product -- that got a little messed up in the pandemic.
So by working together,
each of our individual organization goals were really met.
So anyway, my piece of advice would be lead with your happy ending,
be really clear together where you're trying to get to, and don't give up on it.
Ryan: Thanks so much, Betsy, and thanks so much for sharing the
the slide on the virtuous cycle.
It's such a great framing and a great visual as well.
Obviously I wanna hear from, you know, from California and Maine.
As Cassandra's presenting the case studies, you know,
I noticed that perhaps the greatest difference in policy design was between
Maine and California's policy. So on the one hand,
Maine's policy was quite sleek, as Cassandra put it,
where California has had a lot of different complementary policies built into
the budget bill. So, Ryan, I want kinda maybe start with you,
maybe you can provide a little bit more context around why the decisions were
made in Maine around keeping y'all's bill sleek.
Ryan: Yeah, thanks, Ryan.
I guess it comes down to an understanding of how your state's specific
legislature works, and they're all gonna be, you know,
have certain similarities across the country,
but the personalities could be different.
And then just the way things work are different.
So having an understanding or having somebody in your coalition who has an
understanding of how your specific legislative process works,
I think is really important. Uh, we happen to have some really great folks,
in our coalition who are really connected with the way policy moves forward in
the Maine legislature. So I think that's really helpful.
I would just say that, you know, for us in Maine,
we have committees of jurisdiction and they oversee specific agencies,
and that may be the case in other states, I don't know. But for us in Maine,
what that translates into is if you have a bill or a piece of legislation
that dictates or guides more than one agency to do something,
it's almost guaranteed your bill is gonna be dead in the water.
Because the committees that oversee those don't like mission creep.
They don't like to get confused, I guess,
on who's in charge of what.
And so we made the decision to just focus exclusively on
Universal Meals, keep it very simple. We also, as you mentioned,
already have
actually a really strong local incentive purchasing program and
a really strong farm and sea to school network and programming.
And we actually already have supports for those farm and sea to school
initiatives in both our Department of Education and our Department of
Agriculture, Conservation, and Forestry.
So while we would always love to strengthen those,
we decided to just focus on just Universal Meals and getting that, you know,
across the finish line. I would also say that for us in Maine,
and I'm sure this is true again, for legislators in other parts of the country,
but our legislature is pretty conservative overall. I mean, both party,
we have some independents, but both of
our parties are pretty conservative. There are a few
you know, hot button issues that tend to divide our legislature,
but for the most part,
our legislators actually work really well with each other no matter what party
affiliation they have in a one-on-one context.
And then within individual committees, they work really well with each other.
So the more focused we can be on a specific issue and keep
any other thing off the table that might derail the conversation is always
really, really beneficial to us. And I would just lastly say that, you know,
the strength of your coalition is really built on the strength of the members of
it. And, you know, as Cassandra mentioned,
we had some really strong leadership in our state.
I would just point to Full Plates, Full Potential,
which is an amazing organization here. The advocacy
lead there is Anna, and then she really took the lead and
helped us develop some really strong relationships in the legislature.
So I think those are all really important factors.
Ryan: Thanks so much, Ryan.
Abby would love to hear a little bit more about the context around California's
policy design.
Abby: Thanks, Ryan. Like in Maine,
our school Meals for All Policy had bipartisan support,
so we didn't need it in the California context.
We were really pleased that it passed unanimously out of two policy committees
before becoming part of the budget bill.
And part of this is that we were very intentional in using language like "school
meals for all" rather than "universal school meals",
because polling studies by the Center for Science and the Public Interest found
that "school meals for all" had more bipartisan support.
And the comprehensive policy package that we were able to advocate for in
California as part of our budget bill,
was really key to building that broad base of support.
As Cassandra started to mention, in the 2021 budget,
we were ultimately successful in obtaining $650 million for School Meals
for All, which included both breakfast and lunch,
$150 million for kitchen infrastructure and staff training,
and $30 million in both 2021 and 2022 for the largest
farm to school grant program in the country. As we spoke to policymakers,
we were able to speak to different components of this policy.
As Betsy mentioned, for instance,
we had a rural Republican senator who was also a family farmer,
and appreciated how farm to school programs could direct funding to
support California's agricultural communities. Together these investments
have a potential to really transform school meals and get
us closer to the vision where all students have access to free,
fresh, and local meals at school.
Ryan: Thank you so much. I think one of the things that, you know, a common,
another common thread amongst all of y'all is, you know,
the coalition piece and like the coalition structure and how that's developed.
So, so Abby, kind of same with you. Um,
maybe could you speak a little bit about California's coalition,
how y'all engaged diverse groups for the campaign?
Abby: Absolutely. Strong partnerships were critical to building a multi-stakeholder
coalition. When we started out,
our goal was to have a hundred organizations sign on to the legislation,
but we had over 200 show up to support.
They represented labor, and agriculture, and school districts, and health, and faith
organizations, and food banks, advocacy orgs,
nonprofits, so many more.
And as a co-sponsor of the School Meals for All legislation,
The Center for Ecoliteracy worked really closely with our fellow co-sponsors
who formed a core coalition.
And that was the California Association of Food Banks ,Next Gen California,
the Tomcat Ranch Educational Foundation,
and State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurman.
We built a broad coalition and each of the co-sponsors brought a unique
set of other stakeholders to the table.
I also really want to acknowledge our legislative champion, Senator Nancy Skinner.
She's Chair of the Senate Budget Committee and played a key role in bringing
these groups together with her long history of social justice and environmental
advocacy. Her Chief of Staff, Jess Bartholow,
is an incredible advocate for anti-hunger.
And Senator Skinner and her team recruited over 30 co-authors on the bill,
which is a quarter of the California legislature.
And that really helped build the legislative support and momentum.
I also wanna acknowledge that school districts were our real champions.
The school districts in the Center for Ecoliteracy's
California Food for California Kids Network provided a unique opportunity to
gauge feasibility and priorities.
We connected school nutrition directors with policymakers,
supported them in testifying at hearings,
and elevated their voices in the press and on social media. For instance,
a New York Times article featured Erin Primer,
a school nutrition director who shared the story of a single mother who called
her in tears when she learned that she made just a few hundred dollars
over the annual income limit to qualify for free or reduced price meals.
Media opportunities, social media kits, press releases,
these all provided an opportunity to bring together the coalition and amplify
their voices in supporting this historic legislation.
We're going to share in the chat a link with these press releases and coverage so
you can see who the members of the California coalition were and how the media
responded to this diverse coalition.
Ryan: Thank you so much for sharing, Abby. It's really important to,
and I feel like so,
so interesting to hear, about like how these coalitions emerge in in so many
different parts of the country. Betsy,
I know y'all had a very formal model of organizing.
Maybe could you speak a little bit more about the process you went through to
develop y'all's coalition?
Betsy: Sure. Um, so we have an amazing consultant,
advocacy consultant and lobbyist, Action Circles.
So they have a model of organizing that really worked well for us.
So I talked a little bit about this happy ending that you have with your
partners, that you're working together towards,
but the other piece that we did very early on with the core
coalition is develop a set of shared principles for the campaign.
So we worked out ahead of time agreements around
what needed to be met in the legislation and what could not be compromised.
So that when it was on the spot and legislators are full of good ideas
we already had a foundation as to what we could say no or yes
to. And it really created a lot of trust.
It surfaced tensions early on, we could work through it.
It allowed us to make quick decisions in the legislature, and it kept us
from splintering as a coalition, you know, with different points of view.
So I really recommend the shared principles. And I'm not gonna read them all,
I could probably drop them in the chat, but a few things,
just to give you an idea was, like, no student or family being shamed or
singled out.
A state revenue source should not be regressive and should not require cut to
other important programs.
That it should enhance the local economy through increased local purchasing,
things like that. And investing in the capacity of our Agency of Ed to
implement. So we did create a position for that.
So for example, because I'm sure many of you have this, legislators say,
well, it's a big investment,
maybe we should just raise the threshold so more kids qualify, but not everyone.
And we could very quickly say, okay,
this is in conflict with our shared principles.
It doesn't de-stigmatize the meal program. It's not universal,
it's not equitable. So we could say no. And, and that really helped.
The other thing was,I think similar to what Abby mentioned,
shared messaging.
And so we really worked together to rewrite the story of school
meals and what it could look like.
And there's some message frameworks that I think Cassandra could drop in the
link... there's a link to what we ended up as our messaging,
and we just kept saying it. All of us.
zThe legislators started to use the same messaging.
We looked at rewriting the story that was, you know,
originally being told that the quality of meals was poor and people really
didn't want their children eating them.
And after a year that has turned around,
and it was really more around equity and collective responsibility, that
every student should have access to the same things at school,
whether it's education or food.
And it really kind of countered this idea that, well,
individual parents should be responsible for feeding their kids. Because if you
look at bussing, and sports, and Chromebooks, and everything else,
that wasn't the case. So, the messaging, the consistent messaging, was really,
really helpful for us.
Ryan: Thanks so much Betsy. And I think kind of keeping it to the messaging, you know,
storytelling aspect,
I want to enter in like a kind of a quick lightning round with each of y'all to
maybe talk to and respond to maybe some common questions or myths about
Universal Meals, especially when, you know,
advocates kind of experience some pushback. So this one's for you, Abby,
lightning round. Real quick, real quick.
So this is maybe something that folks have, have heard.
"Isn't this something the federal government should be paying for?
Why is this a state issue?"
Abby: This is such a great question,
and one we also got from California policy makers. Yes,
it would be wonderful if a Federal Government were to pass school meals for all,
I'm sure most of us on this call have signed on the letters and advocated
for it. However, at the time,
in 2021,
it was very clear that even the best federal policy on the table,
which was the American Family's Plan,
would still leave out 42% of California schools. For
key legislators,
we produced individualized reports about the impact of school meals for all,
and showed which of the students and schools in their district would be left out
of that proposed federal policy.
We also worked hard to design the California policy so that it compliments the
existing federal funding for school meals. For instance,
in this coming school year,
the state expects to see $2.6 billion of federal
funds go to school meals in California compared to nearly
$1.7 billion of state funds for those universal school meals and
increased state reimbursement.
So that's how the federal and state policies can work together to advance food
access.
Ryan: Thanks, Abby. Okay, moving on. This one's for Ryan Parker.
So again, in line with like messaging, storytelling, pushback,
"Why are we going to pay for rich kids to eat?"
Ryan: Yeah, this is another question that you might face. It's one that, you know,
you can anticipate. It's gonna come from a certain, a certain,
demographic of legislator, I guess. And what I would say is, first of all,
at least in Maine, we don't have a lot of rich kids.
So this is not something that we necessarily have to worry about. But, you know,
before the pandemic and before our, you know, universal meals
bill became law,
most of our school districts were well over 50% free and reduced. So we,
you know, as mentioned, we first went for getting rid of the reduced
level or label.
And so that kind of introduced the idea and gave legislators an idea,
a sense of, you know, what are we talking about here in terms of population
and who's gonna benefit from this? So that, you know,
the pump was already primed in that way. I would also just share,
one of the best champions we had for our legislation was, uh, Senator Matt Pouliot,
who, uh, was a Republican leader at the time.
And we also had Senate President Troy Jackson who was,
Senate President as I said. And
the two of them worked really well together in a bipartisan fashion.
But Senator Pouliot was really instrumental, I would say,
in getting a lot of his Republican colleagues on board.
And one of the sort of metaphors that he used was, you know,
to make them understand, look, as a state,
we already spend over a billion dollars on education.
And so we're investing all this money in education,
but that we're not giving kids one of the most basic things that they need to
achieve all of the benefits from that. So it's it's really,
you know, as Betsy said, a return on investment issue. And,
you know, it'd be like buying a Ferrari and not putting any gas in it,
it just silly. And then one thing that I would just bring,
and one of the pieces that I was able to bring to bear for legislators, is I've
been on my school board for the last six years,
and so have a pretty intricate knowledge of the backend of things and how things
are funded. And
the reality is the way schools and education are funded in
most states in the country, if not all, is through local property taxes.
And so the reality is you're paying for it anyway. In our state,
in the state of Maine and certainly in our district,
every year we would have to allocate a certain amount of money from our general
operating budget to offset the losses in our school nutrition
budget.
And now that Universal Meals has been in place for two years in Maine, this year,
for the first time in at least a decade,
our district has zeroed out that that line, so we no longer are providing that,
additional supplement to our nutrition department,
and yet they still are more than breaking even.
So it saves everybody money in the long run.
Ryan: Thanks, Ryan. Alright, last question. in the lightning round.
Betsy, his one's about the forms. So as we know,
there's a lot of fear that if students get to eat for free,
their families won't fill out income eligibility paperwork.
So these forms are often used to determine, you know,
other kinds of funding that goes to school.
So can you talk to someone who would say,
to someone who's worried, you know,
someone who's worried that their school will get less funding overall because
there's no direct incentive for families to fill out these
income verification forms?
Betsy: Yeah, well, my lightning answer wasn't, would be, I mean,
it makes no sense to not feed our kids because we can't figure out the right
forms.
So we often said that our children should not pay the price and the adults can
figure this out. So, you know,
we're still figuring out getting people to fill out either free and reduced
forms or household income forms. But I will give a plug that Vermont got
USDA pilot approved for direct certification through Medicaid,
and that's probably gonna be a game changer for us. You know,
there's a lot of details,
how and when that can work in a state,
but it's going to work in Vermont and I think it'll take away that burden.
But that's a little side note. But yes, for us,
the kids shouldn't pay the price of that. The adults need to figure this out.
Ryan: Thank you so much. So I know we've, we've got
probably about less than 15 minutes left,
so I'm just going to ask a couple more questions. We do wanna open it up
for questions and answers. But, you know,
I would like to just kind of maybe end on some questions about, you know,
what happens if a state does adopt universal meals? So Abby,
I want to kind of turn it over to you.
Do you have any insights from implementation that you want to share or maybe
some things that maybe your coalition's working on now?
Abby: Thanks, Ryan. School Meals for All is working.
We have heard from students across California that the stigma is
gone, eating school meals has become the norm,
and that free school meals are building community. In California,
participation in school meals has remained strong, increasing to nearly pre-
pandemic levels despite declining enrollments,
whereas we've seen drops in other states after the federal waivers expired.
We're lucky that California's policy funded evaluation through folks at the
Nutrition Policy Institute who are collaborating
with researchers in Maine to compare states with and without,
and others to compare 10 states with and without school meals for all policies.
Some of their early results are available and we're excited to keep learning
from them.
And the Center for Ecoliteracy continues to work with over a hundred school
districts and the California Food for California Kids Network and beyond to
support effective implementation of school meals for all.
We've convened a School Meals for All implementation task force held,
community of practice calls,
surveyed and interviewed districts about their challenges and successes.
Cassandra mentioned earlier a few of the themes
and challenges around time to eat, around staffing and labor shortages,
and around the paperwork
as Betsy was just discussing. In response to these challenges,
we've produced a resource on success with School Meals for all,
which we'll drop into the chat.
We've held webinars with school districts to share best practices,
and of course, our advocacy doesn't stop. In 2022,
the School Meals for All Coalition advocated for a suite of complimentary state
policies, and we were successful in securing over $2 billion,
including $600 million for kitchen infrastructure and training,
$45 million for workforce development and $60 million for farm to school.
In this current year, things have been harder. California's facing
a budget deficit of over $30 billion.
We're pleased that California continued its commitment to fully funding
free school meals for all and increased state meal reimbursement of nearly a
dollar per meal.
They were also successful in protecting the funding allocated last year,
however,
many important programs such as kitchen infrastructure and training did not
receive new funding in this budget.
Ryan: Ryan,
I know you kind of have an interesting perspective on this, especially,
you kind of mentioned that you're, you know, part of a school board, so,
I feel like it's really important that we get more school board members in these
advocacy conversations.
Can you maybe talk to about how these universal meals has impacted y'all's
school? Maybe a little more detail?
Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. I would just say, first of all,
in terms of the actual advocacy,
one of the things that school boards are tasked with, so to speak,
in terms of mission, in the state of Maine
is actually advocacy on behalf of students and families.
But most school boards forget that.,
And a lot of them are actually very hesitant to take
what they see as political stance on state issues.
And because I'm very politically active and have been working in the legislature
for a long time, I also am kind of a nerd about nuts and bolts of policy.
I kind of looked up the rules for school boards and was able to get our school
board to pass a unanimous resolution,
urging the state legislature to pass universal meals.
And because that happens so rarely, it really has an impact.
So I would say getting school boards to take action is really important,
especially because they're the ones that have to pass the local budgets and
they're the ones that know firsthand how difficult that is or can be.
But then I just wanted to share, as I mentioned earlier,
our school nutrition program no longer operates in the red,
which it did every year to the tune of $80,000 every year.
We
had to transfer from the budget $80,000 a year to make our nutrition
department whole. That has completely gone away, and they are able to reinvest
some of the additional funding that they're getting now that Universal Meals is
the law of the land, and participation has increased. But
on a better note, an even more important note, I think it,
it provides the opportunity for further discussion. So in my school board,
our longtime school nutrition director retired at the end of last year,
and I was able to work with the superintendent because I developed a
relationship around these issues,
worked with the superintendent to rewrite the entire job description to focus
more on scratch cooking and local procurement.
And we were able to find someone that I'm just really excited about,
who's got a lot of experience working with local farmers and doing some really
exciting things in the kitchen. And she just started this summer.
So I'm really looking forward to continuing this momentum now that,
you know, she has some resources to work with
and the support of our school board.
Ryan: That's so wonderful to hear, Ryan. And it's
really encouraging and it's, I think it's hopeful for the rest of us.
And so I just wanna end, before we enter our q and a, Betsy,
maybe you could provide some words of wisdom, some words of hope,
you know,
anything that you'd like to kind of share as far as last words of advice on how
to maintain hope during the campaign process for other
other folks that are still in the thick of this?
Betsy: Yeah. For maintaining hope in the process,
I would say it's really the long game.
And it's taken us a long time. It didn't happen overnight.
And so build your base, you know,
give people ways to get involved from the simplest, small ways of just
filling out a supporter call card, or sending an email, to showing
up in an event, to, you know,
showing up and testifying in hearings. And celebrate and appreciate
along the way all those small gains and wins
because you're in it for the long haul, I think.
And even though we've passed this legislation,
we'll be going back every year telling the story, showing the impact,
thanking people, which is really important. So I think that's important.
And the other, the only last thing I would say is, it's all about stories.
Like people would repeat the talking points and that was important in the data,
but it was all the personal story.
So everyone who spoke, it was a personal story and the legislators
were so moved, especially with the students sharing their stories,
that they started to share their own stories from childhood. And
that personal connection is what made the difference for people to say,
we have to do this, we can't not do this.
Ryan: That's wonderful. Thank you so much Betsy, and Ryan, and Abby.
I definitely wanna open up the floor.
If anyone here with us would like to ask the panelists a question,
feel free to type your question into the chat. If you're comfortable,
raising your hand, coming off mute, asking your question, we'd love to
be here
to kind of help answer anything that you might be curious about or wanna dive in
deeper.
Cassandra: I can read a question from Mike. It's,
"I've always said it's cheaper to cook fresh,
healthy meals and a bunch of frozen preheated meals.
Is there any research to show how children's academic performance improved?
About health now having a guaranteed meal in California?
Do you partner with local chefs to teach, teach cafeteria staff, et cetera,
et cetera?" Abby: I'll maybe start. Yes,
there's certainly research, peer-reviewed research, that shows that when kids
aren't hungry, their academic performance improves.
And we've also seen research that shows that schools are one of the healthiest
places Americans consume food.
So there's an abundance of research on that end.
We're working to provide supports to school districts to be able
to serve and prepare fresh meals.
We have a virtual culinary training that you can find for free on our
website, recipes, things like that.
We'll have an upcoming series of community of practice calls this school year
with menu planning ideas and resources.
I also really wanna give a shout out to our partners at the Chef Ann
Foundation who's been doing workforce development,
formal apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs,
which are part of the budget bill and the amazing things that some of our school
nutrition directors are doing to train their staff with the kitchen
infrastructure funds.
They're partnering with the Culinary Institute of America to do formal trainings
in kitchens. And, you know,
I'm hearing from them about how their staff have tasted roasted broccoli for the
first time and had no idea broccoli could taste so good.
And those types of trainings make such a difference to staff morale and
to how they feel about their jobs and the food that they're able to serve kids.
So yes, you're right, fresh food costs less than frozen meals,
but you need the people and you need the equipment to be able to get there.
And so we're just really lucky in California to have these supports.
Ryan: I'd just like to jump in and just echo something that Betsy said that I think
is super important when you're doing any sort of advocacy is, yes,
it's important to have the research and the data in your back pocket,
but it's the stories that really impact the legislators and policymakers.
So you want to be able to pull that stuff up, you know, as quickly as possible,
but if you talk to any teacher,
anywhere in the country, about a student who comes back from lunch or recess that
has not had enough to eat, that's all the story you need right there.
They will tell you firsthand what is going to happen,
and they can repeat that for any kid across the country.
And then once you get them eating and get them adequate nutrition,
they will tell you exactly what happens in a classroom, how much easier it is,
how much more focused the student can be.
Kids cannot learn when their stomachs are empty.
We all know that. Anyone who has children knows what happens when a kid gets
hungry. And legislators know that too. Most legislators, at least in Maine,
have kids, have grandkids, you know, have been teachers.
So making those stories make the connection, I think is super critical. Betsy: Yeah,
there's a great comment in the chat about during the pandemic,
the nurse commented on seeing less students.
I think we all had that opportunity to have universal meals,
and so find those stories from teachers, from school nurses, you know,
from anyone in the school that could see the difference
of the culture in the lunchroom and
ability of kids to do their best and bring their best when
they're well fed at school.
Ryan: Thanks y'all. And thanks for the question.
We have another one from Jennifer.
"Knowing that this will be a multi-year process,
what's your advice on pursuing small steps each year?
Like getting rid of reduced, et cetera,
or going for the full school meals for all each year?"
Ryan: I could jump in real quick on that.
Just my advice always for advocacy is always start with more than you think
you're gonna get and negotiate backwards.
I think the mistake that a lot of folks make is getting exactly what they want.
Like, you know, when Betsy talked about the happy ending,
you have to understand what it is you're actually going for and know that that
is where you're gonna draw the line.
And if you can go in asking for more than that,
then when you negotiate backwards what you wanted in the first place seems
completely reasonable.
Ryan: Awesome. Anyone else wanna comment on that?
Okay. We have maybe time for one more question.
"How can community partners in food security help in this?
I run the nutrition program at the local rural community center."
Maybe some advice for them.
Betsy: Yeah, I think find and be part of that coalition,
and hopefully there is one. In finding those partners where,
you all benefit from that, you know,
end result and everybody has a role in that and brings their perspective to the
table. So I would say wherever you are, is there a coalition there?,
there certainly are partners who are interested in this to bring together
and begin to plan
how that can move forward in your state. So yes,
and I think short term, write a letter to the editor.
I know that sounds so old fashioned, whether that's online or in a print,
it depends where you're living.
But some way of just sharing your opinion of why this is so important.
Call your legislator,
have lunch with them in a school cafeteria and just talk about
how different school meals are and how important universal meals are.
So I think there's a role for everyone.
Ryan: Awesome. Thanks so much, Betsy. And again, I just wanna reiterate to
all y'all for being here with us
to speak a little bit more about y'all's efforts and, you know,
the connection with Farm to School, Healthy School Meals for All.
This has been a really wonderful opportunity. I know we're getting lots of,
you know, kudos in the chat. So, thank you all again,
and thank you for everyone who's here with us today participating
with us, and to Cassandra and Valentina our, interpreter today.
Just before we kind of wrap things up, I just wanna invite everyone, you know,
to join us, become a
partner with us at National Farm to School Network. I just put the
link in the chat, so if you're not already, you know, please feel free to,
to pursue that. And with that, we'll
wrap it up. Don't forget,
we'll be sharing the recording, the slides,
our panelists contact information.
So if you have any follow up questions at all, you know,
we'll be able to connect with you and please don't hesitate to reach out.
So thanks again and have a good rest of your afternoon.
Thanks everyone.
Bye.
All right, Monnette, go ahead and say goodbye. Bye bye.