Podcasts about foodcorps

If you've ever put a Newman's Own salad dressing into your grocery cart, congratulations! You've made a charitable donation. That's because Newman's Own Foundation owns the food company outright and directs 100% of profits to the foundation's philanthropic initiatives. What began as actor Paul Newman's holiday gift—homemade dressing in old wine bottles—has grown into a $600 million force for good. Guided by the late actor's generosity, the foundation continues to give it all away, staying true to its founding mission to nourish and transform the lives of children who face adversity.We invited Alex Amouyel, President and CEO of Newman's Own Foundation, to talk about the foundation's success and how it's sharpening its focus, building strategic partnerships, and doubling down on impact measurement. She shares how Newman's Own Foundation is not only nourishing children but helping the entire philanthropic ecosystem thrive by funding resilience-building camps through the SeriousFun Children's Network, fighting for food justice in schools via grantees like FoodCorps, and launching initiatives like the “100% for Purpose Club.” This work goes far beyond philanthropy: “When you get the intersection right of aligning to your mission and to your superpowers, you are living your purpose.”Listen for key insights on:Impact measurement, monitoring, and evaluationLeveraging influence and partnerships to multiply donation impactFocusing philanthropic investments on a core mission to achieve greater success Resources + Links:Alex Amouyel's LinkedInNewman's Own FoundationPaul NewmanNewman's Own Foundation Impact (00:00) - Welcome to Purpose 360 (00:14) - Meet Alex Amouyel, Newman's Own (02:19) - Alex's Background (05:31) - Origins (08:45) - Stories About Paul (12:47) - SeriousFun Network (15:35) - Response (16:04) - Taking Stock (18:42) - Measurement (20:37) - Food Corps (23:25) - Paul's Hundredth Birthday (24:13) - Other Programs (26:47) - Living Your Purpose (28:17) - In Three Years (28:44) - Last Thoughts (29:07) - Wrap Up

Could your nonprofit offer staff benefits they couldn't even get working for a Fortune 500 employer? Curt Ellis, co-founder and CEO of FoodCorps, joins Dolph Goldenburg to share the secret sauce behind FoodCorps' jaw-dropping benefits package. From a $3,000 401(k) match to 16 weeks of paid parental leave to sabbaticals, FoodCorps is setting new standards in the nonprofit sector. Ellis explains why offering these benefits isn't just about employee satisfaction—it's a business strategy that strengthens FoodCorps' mission to connect children to nourishing food. Discover how FoodCorps' approach to sabbaticals, half-day Fridays, and family planning support boosts morale and retains talent in the high-turnover nonprofit workforce. Whether you're tackling employee burnout or seeking donor buy-in for better benefits, this episode is your blueprint for success. This episode answers the following questions: How can I implement competitive benefits at my nonprofit? Why are sabbaticals a game-changer for retention? How can I approach funders about improving staff benefits? Links mentioned in this episode: FoodCorps Looking for More? Check out these amazing episodes: Our Unlimited PTO Experiment with Dolph & Lexie on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website with show notes. Beyond Money: Incentives That Work with Uri Gneezy on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or our website with show notes.

Is it possible to build a profitable expertise business that is 100% values-aligned and mission driven? Lucy Flores—who has built a design studio dedicated to co-creating a more just, joyful and sustainable U.S. food system—says yes, with the results to prove it:Why she niched her business into food equity right from the beginning—and how it played out.How she thinks about and builds alliances, coalitions and partnerships (hint: she doesn't have competitors).Her approach—as an introvert—to investing in relationships and meeting new people in her field.Why niching alone wasn't enough—and what changed when she started marketing regularly.Adopting a mindset of cautious optimism and deciding when it's “safe to fail”.LINKSLucy Flores Website | LinkedInRochelle Moulton Email List | LinkedIn | Twitter | InstagramBIOLucy is the founder of Studio Magic Hour, a collaborative design studio working to advance equity in the food system, and a former Equitable Design Fellow at Hopelab.She's partnered with organizations including the California Academy of Sciences, the Fair Food Network, Hopelab, The Nature Conservancy, Plant Futures, Share Our Strength, and the Southern Poverty Law Center to lead design and design research projects, facilitate workshops, and coach in-house design and innovation teams.Previously, she helped launch FoodCorps, a national nonprofit dedicated to cultivating joy, health, and justice for kids through nutritious food, in partnership with schools and community. She is a member of the Design Justice Network, the Democracy & Belonging Forum at the Othering and Belonging Institute, Equity Army, and AIGA.BOOK A STRATEGY CALL WITH ROCHELLERESOURCES FOR SOLOISTS10 Ways To Grow Revenue As A Soloist (Without Working More Hours): most of us have been conditioned to work more when we want to grow revenue—but what if we just worked differently?Master Soloist Events: in-person events for Soloists to gather and learn.The Soloist Women community: a place to connect with like-minded women (and join a channel dedicated to your revenue level).The Authority Code: How to Position, Monetize and Sell Your Expertise: equal parts bible, blueprint and bushido. How to think like, become—and remain—an authority.

Kendal Chavez, Food and Hunger Advisor in the office of New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham; Curt Ellis, co-founder of FoodCorps; and Stephanie Lip, Senior School Food Operations Specialist at the Chef Ann Foundation talk to Mark about all things school food – "the biggest restaurant chain in the country." Why what we feed our kids is fundamental to our democracy, why school food is a political football, who's got the power to shape school food now, and all the great work that's happening.Subscribe to Food with Mark Bittman on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen, and please help us grow by leaving us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts.Follow Mark on Twitter at @bittman, and on Facebook and Instagram at @markbittman. Want more food content? Subscribe to The Bittman Project at www.bittmanproject.com.Questions or comments? Email food@markbittman.com. And if you have a minute, we'd love it if you'd take a short survey about our show! Head here: http://bit.ly/foodwithmarkbittman-survey Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The UAW strike expands to Louisville, the candidates for governor meet for a debate, new details about the state's youth detention centers, a non-profit teaching food-related skills to students, and news of another eclipse.

When you are born with privilege, there's a depth of cultural understanding that you can only gain from people who live the issue you're trying to solve. When Curt Ellis co-founded FoodCorps almost 15 years ago, he quickly realized that only parachuting AmeriCorp members to underserved communities wasn't quite right. Today, FoodCorps recruits a majority of people within the communities they serve. In this episode, Curt and FoodCorps President Dr. Harvey tell us how this approach is getting them closer to an ambitious goal: to provide every child in the U.S. with access to food education and nourishing food.Featuring Curt Ellis, Co-founder and CEO, FoodCorps and Dr. Robert S. Harvey President, FoodCorps.If you want to learn more about FoodCorps head on over to foodcorps.org.--If you aspire to be a System Catalyst and need resources to help you on your journey, subscribe to our newsletter. Learn more about our mission and our partners, visit systemcatalysts.com.This podcast is produced by Hueman Group Media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Episode #85 is up! Check it out!!!Special Guest Dr. Robert Harvey, President of FoodCorps, joins Matt to discuss the impact nutrition has on students.Connect with Dr. Harvey via instagram and Twitter @therobharvey, and the following websites www.roberrtsharvey.com or www.foodcorps.org

Five million children in the U.S live in food-insecure households, uncertain if they have enough money for meals. This not only affects their nutrition, but many believe it could impact their performance in school too. How has the pandemic affected students who rely on free school meals? How does lack of access to nutritious foods impact student learning and outcomes? What can we do to break stigmas around food insecurity and ensure that EVERY student has the nutrition they need to succeed?   In this episode, Kevin discusses nutrition in and outside of schools with the founder and CEO of FoodCorps, Curt Ellis.

With the future of food policy looking murky, we turn to experts in the field to help us understand the realities of the bureaucracy surrounding food security, farming rights, and pesticide regulation. We speak to scientists whose research influences the policy we see on the congressional floor. We hear from nonprofits working to navigate the endless maze of food assistance programs and advocate for those on the receiving end. And, we break down the legislation influencing the future of food sovereignty in the US. There are rarely clear answers or defined conclusions when it comes to the policy surrounding one of humans' most basic needs. But, as we head into the new year, we hope these stories serve as a reminder that there are people working towards a more equitable and sustainable food future for all. Further Reading:To learn more about the current state of debt relief for Black farmers, read this article from Civil EatsTo read up on the latest updates about soil carbon storage, check out this article from The CounterTo read the full language of the amendment and public commentary you can take a look at the Maine election guide from November 2021 as well as the Ballot Pedia pageFor more Maine farming statistics, check out the 2020 state agricultural report.To learn more about the corporations who own the majority of the worlds' seed patents, you can read this Deutsche Welle articleFor stats on hunger in the U.S., go to Feeding America's websiteTo learn how you can get involved and take action on policy regarding school meals, check out FoodCorps' Action Center.To learn more about some of the nutrition provisions in the Build Back Better Act, check out this report from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.To learn more about the Natural Resources Defense Council, go to their website here.Keep Meat and Three on the air: become an HRN Member today! Go to heritageradionetwork.org/donate. Meat and Three is powered by Simplecast.

A new two-year, $500,000 grant program can help Connecticut schools improve on child nutrition through "farm-to-school" programming. Overseen by the Department of Agriculture and with funding through the American Rescue Plan Act, schools can tailor the grant to address infrastructural needs, whether a stove or a new greenhouse; to buy local farm fresh food; or to integrate experiential learning opportunities with agriculture. Schools may teach kids about where their food comes from, but how often is that experience hands-on? Hear from FoodCorps along with local schools and farms about why farm-to-school programming isn't a niche extracurricular, but a factor of food security. Dawn Crayco - FoodCorps Northeast Regional Director Joey Listro - New Britain ROOTS Founder and Executive Director; New Britain Board of Education Wellness Committee Chair Erika Bahler - Agricultural Science & Technology Education Department Head at Rockville High School Monica Maccera-Filppu - Common Ground High School Executive Director Zania Johnson - Micro2Life Co-founder Support the show: http://wnpr.org/donate See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On this episode of Decisions That Matter, hosts Alex Stonehouse and Bernadette Launi sat down with Jillian Dy to discuss her work at FoodCorps as the Director of Supply Chain Engagement. FoodCorps' mission involves bringing together local communities to connect kids to healthy food in school. Throughout this episode Jillian does a great job of covering everything from the high-level policy topics that drive a lot of rules and outcomes, to the on-the-ground supply chain challenges involved in feeding and educating kids in school districts across the country. This topic is important to all of us, both as individuals as a nation, because the choices being made every day have a tremendous impact on the next generation of kids. The habits that define their future are being made now, and we have the ability to improve their lives through improvements to supply chain processes, procurement policies, and communication between schools and local farms and businesses. The topic of school food may seem like a niche topic, but this discussion is full of fascinating information from Jillian that is relevant to a wide range of people, including procurement and supply chain professionals, a food service workers, teachers, school administrators, and parents in general. Below is a list of resources that Jillian was generous enough to provide to support the information she shared during the episode in case you want more in-depth information: Reimagining School Cafeterias Report Full report on Creating Healthy School Environments and Key Takeaways from the FoodCorps and Tisch Center for Food, Policy, and Education Partnership FoodCorps Policy Vision reWorking Lunch report "Why are you still packing lunch for your kids?" was published in the New York Times just over a year ago by Jennifer Gaddisin. Click here to sign up for news and policy alerts from FoodCorps and stay up to speed on the great work they are doing, or follow FoodCorps at their @foodcorps handle on all major social media channels, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and more. And as always, this podcast is brought to you by Procurated, where you can instantly access thousands of peer-reviewed suppliers to make make complex buying decisions much easier.

Genetic Engineering and Society Center GES Colloquium - Tuesdays 12-1PM (via Zoom) NC State University | http://go.ncsu.edu/ges-colloquium GES Mediasite - See videos, full abstracts, speaker bios, and slides https://go.ncsu.edu/ges-mediasite Twitter - https://twitter.com/GESCenterNCSU Agriculture from its inception has been the exploitation of people and nature. “Modernity” has exacerbated that mode of operation. In the 21st century, will we be able to do better? Links & Resources: Adam Frank, Woodruff Sullivan (2014) Sustainability and the astrobiological perspective: Framing human futures in a planetary context Anthropocene, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2014.08.002 Goodbye, U.S.D.A., Hello, Department of Food and Well-Being, Ricardo Salvador, New York Times, Dec. 3, 2020 Guest Speaker Dr. Ricardo J. Salvador (@cadwego) is Director and Senior Scientist of the Food & Environment Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, in Washington DC. He leads a team of scientists, economists, policy analysts and organizers to make the case that modern, sustainable practices can be highly productive while also protecting the environment, producing healthy food, and creating economic opportunity for all. He is a member of the Board of Agriculture and National Resources of the National Academy of Sciences, and of the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food. He has advised a range of leading organizations in sustainable and equitable agriculture, including the Food Chain Workers Alliance, the Fair Food Program of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, The Land Institute, FoodCorps, National Farm to School Network, Center for Good Food Purchasing, Food System 6, and the HEAL Food Alliance. He is an agronomist with a focus on sustainability and systems analysis. His undergraduate degree in agriculture is from New Mexico State University, and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in crop production and physiology are from Iowa State University.  GES Center - Integrating scientific knowledge & diverse public values in shaping the futures of biotechnology. Find out more at https://ges-center-lectures-ncsu.pinecast.co

In this episode: Lauren Rhoades is the director of the Eudora Welty House & Garden in Jackson. Originally from Colorado, Lauren moved to Jackson in 2013 to work with FoodCorps, an AmeriCorps program. Prior to her work at the Welty House, Lauren founded and operated Sweet & Sauer, Mississippi's first fermentation company. Her kimchi received a 2018 Southern Living Food Award. Outside of work, Lauren is a gardener, writer and an MFA candidate at the Mississippi University for Women. Instagram.com/laurenrhoades | www.EudoraWeltyHouse.org | jxn.ms/jxnoutside

Today on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg,” Dani interviews Rebecca Eyre, CEO of Project HEAL and Curt Ellis, Co-Founder and CEO of FoodCorps. Dani and Curt discuss how FoodCorps service members lead hands-on food and nutrition education in schools across the United States, why healthy school meals are so important, and the impact FoodCorps members have on healthy food access in the communities they serve. Then, Dani and Rebecca discuss how advocates and workers across the food system can help destigmatize, educate about, or care for people with eating disorders. They also talk about Project HEAL’s Communities of Healing, why access to treatment is inequitable, and the importance of having support groups specifically for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. While you’re listening, subscribe, rate, and review the show; it would mean the world to us to have your feedback. You can listen to “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg” wherever you consume your podcasts.

This week on Lifestyles, Lillian speaks with the Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalakis. She’ll share her aspirations growing up, what she hopes to accomplish, and her experience when she visited the Inland Empire. Then, Lillian has a conversation with KVCR listener Debbie Schnur, also known as Debbie the Garden Lady. Debbie is a FoodCorps service member and teaches nutrition and gardening to elementary school children. She’ll talk about how she continues to educate children outside of the physical classroom with her remote garden and on her YouTube channel. For more information about Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, visit ltg.ca.gov/about For more information about Debbie Schnur, visit her Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKlmBLzRv1Aehr9y94ORV3Q

This week on Lifestyles, Lillian speaks with the Lieutenant Governor of California, Eleni Kounalakis. She’ll share her aspirations growing up, what she hopes to accomplish, and her experience when she visited the Inland Empire. Then, Lillian has a conversation with KVCR listener Debbie Schnur, also known as Debbie the Garden Lady. Debbie is a FoodCorps service member and teaches nutrition and gardening to elementary school children. She’ll talk about how she continues to educate children outside of the physical classroom with her remote garden and on her YouTube channel. For more information about Lieutenant Governor Eleni Kounalakis, visit ltg.ca.gov/about For more information about Debbie Schnur, visit her Youtube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKlmBLzRv1Aehr9y94ORV3Q

In just 13 years, Sweetgreen has become a foodservice darling with more than 100 locations. But the salad fast casual—which has leveraged a high-quality supply chain and bleeding-edge approach to restaurant technology to reach a valuation of $1.6 billion—is determined to create a legacy beyond the four walls of its restaurants. That's why it recently pledged $1 million (along with other resources) to the nonprofit FoodCorps, which is working to connect kids to healthy food in what's essentially the largest chain in America: school cafeterias.In this exclusive Fast Forward feature, QSR editor Sam Oches goes behind the scenes of Sweetgreen's partnership with FoodCorps and how it's leveraging its expertise to enhance the food experience for America's 30 million K–12 students.QSR Magazine informationFacebook | Twitter | Instagram | LinkedInQSRmagazine.com Have feedback or interview suggestions? Email us at sam@qsrmagazine.com.

If you could remake a school cafeteria, what would it look like? That’s the basis of a newly released report by FoodCorps, a nonprofit that works with communities to connect students to healthy food in school. The team’s Reimaging School Cafeteria’s report provides 13 areas of opportunity for child nutrition professionals, schools and the community. The report was conducted by doing face-to-face interviews with more than 300 students and 100 adult stakeholders in the schools, including teachers, principals and child nutrition professionals. The interviews were conducted in nine schools, representing diverse backgrounds and service styles for lunches. Listen in as I dig in with Erica Curry, director of education for FoodCorps, on how students, in particular, would reimagine their school cafeteria, if given the chance.

Josh York is the founder of the Detroit-based social streetwear line, York Project. Each item purchased provides living essentials to the homeless of Detroit. York Project launched a cut + sew operation and line in Summer 2018 and now employs women from Detroit homeless shelters as part of its production team. Josh also launched a B2B private label garment manufacturing company called Soft Goods Detroit, whose client list includes Shinola, TJ Maxx Canada, The PGA, Chips Ahoy, Speedo, Funyuns, Planters Peanuts, Vaynermedia, among others.Josh was a former buyer at Abercrombie & Fitch and also worked for The Boeing Company. He graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in Supply Chain Management and a minor in German. Josh was honored as a TEDx speaker in 2017. His company, York Project, also participated in the inaugural 2016 cohort of Conquer Accelerator program.Find Josh on LinkedIn.Amanda is an award-winning writer and entrepreneur. She loves to drive change through community. As Co-founder of Bamboo, she builds collaborative workspaces that unite and empower diverse founders and creatives. She is a partner and board member of Venture Catalysts, a 501c3 non-profit leading large scale events. She has a decade of operations and marketing experience but has had the most fun bootstrapping Bamboo from a $5,000 loan to 500+ members and 25,000 sq ft of community space.Find Amanda on LinkedIn.Jen has served as Executive Director of the Detroit Food Academy for five years. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Geography from Colgate University and a Master’s in Business Administration from Michigan State University, where she was a Michigan Non-Profit Association Scholar. In 2010, she received a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to explore the social, economic, and environmental impact of chocolate production on small scale cacao farming communities around the world. Inspired to link young people with farmers close to home, she completed two terms with national service FoodCorps and local organization Food System Economic Partnership (FSEP), connecting cafeterias and classrooms in high needs school districts with local food from Michigan farmers and school gardens. Seeing the need to engage students beyond the school year, Jen co-founded the Detroit Food Academy, bringing food, business, and learning together. As Executive Director, Jen supports our young people and the organization in visioning, strategic planning, partnership expansion, fund development, operations, food systems education, culture-building, program facilitation, and fun captain-ing.Find Jen on LinkedIn.hatchcastpodcast@gmail.com

Imagine you would like to address food and food insecurity in particular and could start with a blank slate, what kind of programs and practices would make sense given the incredible array of possibilities? Our guest today, Curt Ellis and Karrie Denniston have addressed this issue in their own work. Welcome to The Leading Voices in Food. I'm Kelly Brownell, director of the world Food Policy Center at Duke University and professor of public policy at Duke.  I'll begin by introducing Curt Ellis, who was co-founder and CEO of FoodCorps, a national organization affiliated with AmeriCorps. He has received numerous awards for his work and is in my mind one of the most creative people anywhere working on food issues. Curt, it's really nice to have you here. Thanks so much for having me, Kelly. The work of FoodCorps is something that I know personally because my daughter worked in Arkansas as part of the AmeriCorps and FoodCorps program, and I saw the transformative experience it had on her, but also the impact that the FoodCorps volunteers can have on the community. And I assume some of our listeners will know a lot about the organization and others less so. So could you please tell us what FoodCorps is all about? Of course, our work at FoodCorps is an effort attempting to address the challenges of healthy food education and healthy food access for kids at real scale. And we currently support the daily work of 250 AmeriCorps food educators who are working in high poverty schools across 18 states to build school gardens, to introduce kids to new foods on the lunch line and to work with their school communities to build a school-wide culture of health. In addition to that direct impact work that's focused on healthy food education, FoodCorps is doing a new body of systemic work called reWorking Lunch, which seeks to improve the quality of school food at scale and unlock some of the ways in which the way school systems approach healthy food education and access have been stuck in old patterns for far too long. And in addition to those two efforts, we advocate for policies that are rooted in the evidence and that you can see in real life form when you come out to FoodCorps schools around the country, policies that have a potential to drive greater progress faster, in improving what kids eat in school, and what they learn about food there. Our next guest, Karrie Denniston serves as Senior Director of sustainability with the Walmart Foundation, and in this role manages the strategy and grant making for the foundation's efforts to help create environmentally and socially sustainable supply chains globally. Prior to joining Walmart, Karrie served as a vice president of national programs at Feeding America and also worked as a policy analyst with USDA. Karrie, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you so much for having me. It's great to be here. Why did the Walmart Foundation make food insecurity an important priority? Thanks, Kelly. That's a great question. At Walmart and the Walmart Foundation, first think about where we can make the biggest difference. And if you go back in history, Walmart was founded on the idea of helping to democratize access to things that people need in their everyday lives. That was the whole idea of Sam Walton opening a store in rural areas so that people could have affordable access and have that same access that living in a city would afford. So today as the nation's largest grocer, we're continuing that legacy and providing access to safe and affordable food is one important way that we do that. So that's an important backdrop. But also, we fundamentally believe in the importance of addressing hunger, food insecurity, and nutrition and its importance to society. This is a place where we have a lot of assets that we can contribute, even just going beyond philanthropy. So if we think about the business side, what might that look like? Having low food prices. That looks like thinking about how do we reformulate product to make it healthier so that people can access that. It looks like us donating any excess food that's coming through that may not be sellable but is still quality and could still be utilized. And it also means that engaging our suppliers and customers to helping them understand issues of food insecurity and how they can help. We utilize our philanthropy to try to help increase the capacity of the food banking system, the charitable system, access to federal benefit programs. How do we make that system help people get food when and where they need it? So we support initiatives to increase things like access to emergency food programs, or things like benefits, like the SNAP program, the WIC program, children's meal programs in schools, which Curt has a lot of experience with. And we also help to think about how can we advance nutrition literacy and skills. Curt, if you think back to when you founded FoodCorps back in 2010, there were lots of things one could have done. Why did you choose to focus on children and then schools in particular? One in six kids today is growing up in a food insecure household where they don't reliably have enough healthy food at home. And one in three kids across our country is already showing early signs of diet related disease and we know that these diseases discriminate and we know that one in two of our kids of color are expected to develop type 2 diabetes during their lifetimes. And for FoodCorps and the five folks who I co-founded this organization with back in 2010, it was clear to us that our nation's school system represents the best chance we have as a country to reach kids when they are setting their lifelong eating habits in place and school systems represent one of the most powerful leverage points for unlocking larger change in our food system as a whole. There are seven times as many school cafeterias in this country as there are McDonald's franchises. And if we could only turn those school cafeterias into places where every child is getting great high quality food every day and where the supply chain that serves those school meals protects the lands and waters that we depend on, that could be a powerful transformation. For a company as large as Walmart, is this caring for example about the welfare of the farmers and caring about sustainable practices and things like this just considered a good business? Is it part of the ethical nature of the company? Is it because customers care about it? Why be doing these things? Yes to all of that. I think the principle of shared value first is that if we don't actually do those things, very hard for us to run business in the longterm. If we aren't thinking about the sustainability of supply chains and the practices that are in place, and we aren't thinking about how we can have that, we are not going to have a supply in the future, right? So that's important. So it is good business and it is important to business. That is coupled with it is also a place where we can have a leadership position and help advance those issues forward. And customers do care and they should care. Well, given the enormous scope of the Walmart customer base and the stores all over the world, why did you decide to partner with FoodCorps? Well, one objective of our philanthropy is to help improve people's confidence in their ability to consistently consume healthier foods. So we decided to support FoodCorps for a couple of reasons. First was the approach. Nutrition education itself, it's an incredibly valuable tool and it has an importance in trying to help advance people's ability to understand what's healthy and how to make choices. But FoodCorps also developed their program with the belief that nutrition education had to be delivered in context. So if the food quality in the cafeteria and the overall school environment was sending a different signal to the kids after they just had this great nutrition education lesson, that was going to be really hard to maintain those healthier choices. We were also really impressed because FoodCorps thought about, and I'd be curious for Curt to comment on this, they thought about learning from day one. I really feel like FoodCorps wants to know if their efforts are making a difference. They're willing to be creative and they're willing to take some risks in figuring out some paths forward. For us, because we were also trying to figure out this balance, this important question of what can you do at scale in a really structured and thoughtful way, and what has to be built at the local community and really contextualize to a particular location, FoodCorps was really thinking about that and wrestling with those same questions. So we were really excited to be a part of that journey with them. So Curt, can you explain how the partnership with Walmart is working? What's actually occurring on the ground because of it? Yeah. Over the five years that FoodCorps has been able to partner with the Walmart Foundation, so far we have scaled up our quite significantly. So a big piece of what we've been able to do has just been to reach more kids and more schools with the kind of hands-on food education that we know make a really powerful difference in what children eat. This year, FoodCorps is reaching 170,000 students in 350 high poverty schools, thanks in really significant part to the partnership we have with Walmart. The relationship we have with the foundation has also enabled us to bring a strong equity lens to the AmeriCorps service members who we are recruiting and supporting in their work in the field. The Walmart Foundation has made it possible for us to increase what we pay our core members well above what AmeriCorps requires of us. That means we're able to attract core members who come from limited resource backgrounds themselves or members who themselves grew up struggling with hunger and food insecurity, grew up struggling with the realities of a food system that did not serve them healthy food every day. It makes a huge difference in how effective our core members are and how much authenticity we can show up with in the communities where we serve. And the Walmart Foundation has made it possible for FoodCorps to bring our work to places that don't have the kind of philanthropic supporter base that a New York city or a Bay area has. At least a third of our service members are in rural communities and small town settings that don't typically get reached by a national organization. But for FoodCorps, serving native and indigenous communities thoughtfully and well, serving communities like Flint, Michigan, serving communities like the Arkansas Delta and the Mississippi Delta and rural areas in North Carolina, these are huge priorities for us as an organization and they're the kind of priorities that are very hard to achieve without the kind of high trust partnership that we have with the Walmart Foundation. Curt, your mission is so noble and important and I also admire you and your colleagues being willing to have an objective evaluation done to learn and then to move on to other paths that may be more productive than what was going on in the past. Can you give an example of somewhere along the way where you learned something from evaluation that surprised you and changes the way you did things? Yeah, absolutely. So we did a big external evaluation project with Columbia University Teacher's College and the Tisch center on food education and policy there. And one of the findings of that evaluation work was that the real magic happens in food and nutrition education when that approach is hands on. There's a really powerful shift that happens in what kids learn about food and more importantly, what their behaviors are towards healthy food, fruit and vegetables in particular when they engage directly in a school garden and taste a beat pulled raw out of the ground with the dirt still on it, or when they cook in their classroom and learn the skills and build the agency to make a salad dressing themselves, and a cook our recipe for their family at home. We know that kind of thing works because supermarket in Oregon told us they ran out of rutabagas the week FoodCorps taught the rutabaga lesson. That kind of hands-on approach to learning about food is a dramatic shift from what I certainly got in my nutrition education as a kid, which was an authority figure pointing at a government poster on the wall. And I think that old model is one that we've kind of kept going in far too many schools. But because of this finding coming out of the research we did with Columbia University, which showed that when kids get more of that hands-on food education, they triple the fruits and vegetables in their school meals. FoodCorps has oriented much of our policy agenda that we're currently working on in the upcoming child nutrition reauthorization towards trying to stand up programming that would put food educators into school meal programs around the country, because we recognized if we can give more kids that kind of hands-on food education, we'll suddenly be able to take different advantage of the $18 billion our country already invests in putting food on lunch trays for our nation's kids and we can get that healthy food we're putting on lunch trays and the fruits and vegetables in particular eaten by more and more kids if they just get the right introduction to it. So Karrie, from your perspective, what do you see is the value of your work with FoodCorps and what sort of outcomes are you seeing? It's really, it's interesting, Curt listening to you talk about what you sort of see as some of the value and the outcomes. My list would be similar. I think of it in a couple of areas. One has been the learnings on the direct programmatic work. We are seeing that there are practices that are working and some that aren't, that we shouldn't be doing anymore. And in that kind of learning about what are the outcomes that are being driven and what are the different techniques and experiences that can be created more at scale to try and support that. And I think Curt, what as you were sort of talking about, then how do we take that to a more structural level, whether that's through policy or other kinds of mechanisms or embedding that kind of learning across multiple programs. These are really valuable insights that go beyond one organization and one donor, but really start to have implications across the entirety of the field. The other that Curt touched on that I do want to highlight that has really advanced our thinking is how intentional FoodCorps has been about things like hiring, and about diversity, equity and inclusion. Their approach of thinking about recruiting talent, training talent and having that be of the community is incredibly thoughtful and they've been very honest about what does that take. What does that take in terms of stipends? What does that take in terms of support for core members over time? But I think the organization has also not just stopped with frontline. They've also internalized training across their staff in the organization. I would say as a sector, and whether that's food, security support organizations, nutrition education organizations, or really as a nonprofit sector, struggling with issues about how we think about diversity, equity and inclusion in our own organizations and our programmatic work and in the services being provided is something that is very difficult and that the FoodCorps has really been leading the way in starting to put some ideas on the table, learning from those. So that's informed us. It's informed the field. That's really changed the way we thought about the work as well. What sort of training skills do you think are important for the next generation to help tap with food and nutrition and food insecurity issues? Kelly, I love this question because we speak a lot with organizations about how are they thinking about preparing for the future. So the first is that I think we recognize that the needs of families who are experiencing food insecure, they're not static. They're not static in any way. This is a really simple example, but think about when food banks used to hand out information about where pantries were and what their hours were, they handed out paper lists. Today, what's the first thing you would do? You'd go online and you'd do a search. Where is my local place to get help, right? That's an example of how the changing nature and expectation around how people would find information and resources. Now take that to a bigger scale. That means the choices, like do we build a physical location to provide services? Do we offer mobile services? Do we need to explore more on demand kinds of services? Same with nutrition education. Is that hands-on experience the thing that matters? How much can digital play a role? This all has implications for how our responses need to be built for these kinds of issues. So I think our future leaders are going to have to understand and think about how to apply a more human-centered design approach to figuring out how our organizations need to be structured in the future. We need to start with the individuals who are experiencing the situations and build from them as opposed to starting from the structures that we have in place. The second area that I think about is about how technology can be applied to the problems of response. How do we use data? How do we better understand who's in need? How do we better target responses? How do we support shared learning about outcomes? I think about future skills for this sector, applying things like machine learning. How is that going to help us be faster and more targeted in the approach? And then probably the third thing I would offer is not to underestimate personal competencies that we need in the leaders of the future. This is incredibly hard work. It's complex, it's important. It really, really matters. I really think about the kinds of creativity and the passion that's going to be needed from future leaders but also a strong ability to be self-reflected. And as we talk about self reflection, I think Curt talked about this willingness to pivot away from things that aren't working. If it's not working as well as it could, we have to be brave, and that bravery is really important. Thanks for that description. Curt, I was going to ask you the same question. But as Karrie was speaking just now, it made me think of another question that I'd like to ask you instead. Communities often are quite distressful about outside organizations and people coming in to help them, and for a good reason. There's been a long history of this happening without much benefit and the communities are worried about the motives of the people coming in. They just want to get their research done or they want to do their philanthropy and feel good about it. There are a lot of reasons communities have this distrust. How do you address this? Because you're in so many communities of need and I'm sure trust must be a big issue. Trust is the foundation on which all of this work rests and for anyone who's spent meaningful time in your own kid's school or another school setting, you know how relational those environments really are at the end of the day. And it makes me feel like Karrie was spot on in saying a big piece of what is needed in this next wave of work given the ecosystem we all find ourselves in is the ability to be nimble and adaptive and responsive to local context. And so for FoodCorps, that begins with a very strong priority on recruiting folks who work for us, whether it's in our AmeriCorps program as frontline food educators, or the folks who are in our field offices leading the kind of district and principal level relationships and working with other organizations and allies and policy makers around the state, begins with recruiting local talent who come in with expertise and relationships and informal knowledge as well as formal knowledge about the ecosystem in which they are operating. But at an organizational level, it requires us to be placed-based. And it's a tricky thing for a national nonprofit like FoodCorps to strike the right balance between enough consistency from place to place that we get all the benefits of replicability and scalability and measurability and we can tell a powerful story to policy makers, to our partners, and have what is most important, which is adaptive responses to local context, the fact that climate and culture and food culture play out so differently in the Navajo nation from how they play out in rural Maine, from how they play out in New York City. That adaptability is what gives you relevance and it's what actually makes your work make a difference. We work really hard to lean in on the place-based side of that and the culturally relevant side of that. I do think our nation school meal programs in large part are still trying to solve the problems of the last century. The modern school meal program has its origins at a time when we were trying to get the surplus commodities, we were growing on our nation's farms used up by our school system and try to make sure that folks going off to the battlefield in our country were not malnourished and we have a different food landscape today, one that needs to put public health at its center and needs to recognize the fact that in today's incredibly diverse America, food is one of the best tools we have to connect across lines of cultural difference and come together around a shared table to affirm our values. I do believe there's a way we can have school food be an engine, not just for kids being well nourished, but kids feeling really, truly cared for and valued and affirmed in who they are and where they come from. I also would say that there's been a sea change in what young adults are interested in around food. And now everywhere I go there's more and more young people raising their hands saying, "How do I get involved in FoodCorps? How do I donate a year or two of my life to this cause of building a more just and healthful and sustainable food system?" And that is totally thrilling to see. Karrie, do you share Curt's optimism? I do share that optimism. There is an incredible amount of passion. I'm seeing a lot of ignition around what it means to have positive food experiences and how people are relating to food and valuing food within their communities. Food is the most personal thing we do. It's a decision that we make multiple times a day. It's cultural, it's our families, it's we gather around food. We celebrate with food, and we celebrate our communities, our heritage, all around this core convening factor. I am seeing where the value of doing that and putting that in the center is starting to become more and more important, and that is really encouraging for the structures and the processes and the systems and addressing some of these issues. I think that gives me a lot of hope that we have this very personal base in which to build. Given that food insecurity is a major problem in the US and around the world, despite years of efforts to try to help address it, what do you think are the most important things that need to be done? I think first starting with most people just simply don't realize how pervasive food insecurity really is. I often will give people the fact that we look at data and food insecurity exists in every county in America. This is neighbors, friends, family, and that means that we have to think about solutions at a community level and at scale. And it's really complex. At the core, I think food security and food insecurity is about instability. So that might mean housing. That might mean employment. That might mean health. That might mean a very personal family situation. And it also isn't about a static aspect, right? A person isn't food insecure forever. They're insecure often for a moment in time or a few months or some years. For some people, it's more of pervasive over a lifetime. But people are cycling in and out of need. And I think those are all dynamics and aspects that are important to understand. And I think that leads us to two reasons that it continues to be such a pervasive issue. So first, there's still an incredible stigma associated with people who are struggling to have access to healthy food. And it's difficult to ask for help when needed because of that. And second, because it can be so cyclical, it also means that our systems have to make it seamless for people to be able to ask for help when they need it. So it's not easy to navigate a benefit application. It is not easy to figure out, "Where do I go? What's going to be the best place for me," especially when a family is struggling with other stressors in life. So setting aside more of the structural questions around things like housing and healthcare. I think there's some practical short term things that we can really do. We can prioritize helping to reduce stigma, to demystify what food security really is, and to assess where these systems that we have in place may be putting up barriers for people that don't need to be there, that they could be accessing food easier. You know, in our part, well, we think about our own work. We're still going to address these issues at scale. And for context over the last five years, we've helped to provide about 4 billion meals to people in need, right? So scale matters for sure. That is something that needs to happen. But As we think about those lessons and the learnings and some things we can immediately do, we're also thinking differently about how do we prioritize investing in programs in the geographies and for communities that are disproportionately impacted by these issues. You know, Curt shared some of the stats in the beginning for communities of color, for rural geographies. There are areas where we need to have a more targeted approach to develop better tools to address stigma and better tools to reduce some of those system barriers so that people can get access to their needs met in the communities where they're at. So thank you, Karrie. Curt, what are your thoughts on that? At FoodCorps, we're really focused on how do we leverage the scale and reach of our nation's school system to make sure that the 30 million kids a day who are spending half their waking hours and eating often half their daily calories in school learn what healthy food is in a reliably effective way and eat healthy food every day in the meals their schools provide. And our sense is that systemic change that we could catalyze across the school system will have huge longterm impacts on the trajectories of kids who have the chance to fulfill their potential and fulfill their dreams in school and in life and also have a huge impact on how our food system as a whole works there. But I would say if we want to change our school system to better address the needs of the kids who are walking through their school doors food insecure, the kids who on snow days don't get enough food to eat, we have to change some of the stuck mindsets and mental models that have kind of been holding our schools in the place where they've been around food for so long. And really I think we have a school system that very often sees food as a cost center to be minimized instead of an impact center waiting to be unlocked. And when we treat it as a cost center to be minimized, we minimize the amount of time kids have to learn about healthy food. We minimize the amount of time kids have to eat healthy food in their lunch rooms, and we minimize the investment we make in the quality of food we're serving to kids in school, and we minimize the attention we pay to the lunch ladies and gents and the district level school food leadership who are on the front lines of actually getting healthy food to our kids. The result of that is a food system that devalues food in school and leaves a whole lot of kids feeling unsatisfied and unfulfilled and being unnourished by that system and I believe there's another way to approach it, which is to treat it as an impact center and a value center and show what happens when we use the power of food to make sure every child gets the nourishment they need to thrive and every child gets that feeling that only food can give you of knowing you are valued and cared for by the adults around you. Thank you. Well Curt and Karrie, there couldn't be any two more capable, insightful, and passionate people working on this problem. And thank the heavens you're doing this work. And congratulations for what you've accomplished. I know it's only begun. And thank you for being leading voices in food and of course for joining us today. Thanks so much. Our guests today have been Curt Ellis co-founder and CEO of FoodCorps and Karrie Denniston, Senior Director of Sustainability with the Walmart Foundation. And thank you for listening. If you would like to subscribe to the Leading Voices and Food Podcast series, you may do so at Google Play, Stitcher, RadioPublic or Apple Podcasts, or by visiting our website at the Duke World Food Policy Center. This is Kelly Brownell.  

About Anupama Joshi Anupama Joshi is the former Executive Director & Co-Founder of the National Farm to School Network. Ms. Joshi co-founded the organization in 2007, to serve as an information, advocacy, and networking hub for communities working to bring local food sourcing and food and agriculture education into school systems and early care and education sites. Ms. Joshi is a recognized leader in the field of farm to school, food justice and local and regional food systems. She is co-author of Food Justice (MIT Press, 2010) and led the development of “Evaluation for Transformation” – a pioneering cross-sectoral framework for farm to school research and evaluation. Ms. Joshi has been engaged with nutrition, agriculture and food systems issues in various countries around the world. She has worked with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, the Pesticide Action Network; and consulted with various non-profit organizations in Asia. She is a Steering Committee member of the North Carolina Farm to School Coalition, an Advisor for the Blue Sky Funders Forum, USDA’s Farm to School Census and Comprehensive Review Group, and is a Mentor for the Food Systems Leadership Network. She has previously served on the board of directors for FoodCorps and the Community Alliance with FamilyFarmers. She loves to travel, and cook, especially with her son. About The National Farm to School Network The National Farm to School Network is an information, advocacy and networking hub for communities working to bring local food sourcing, school gardens and food and agriculture education into schools and early care and education settings. Farm to school empowers children and their families to make informed food choices while strengthening the local economy and contributing to vibrant communities. National Farm to School Network provides vision, leadership and support at the state, regional and national levels to connect and expand the farm to school movement, which has grown from a handful of schools in the late 1990s to approximately 42,000 schools in all 50 states as of 2014. Our network includes Core Partner and Supporting Partner organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. Territories, thousands of farm to school supporters, a national advisory board and staff. National Farm to School Network was launched in 2007 by a collaborative of more than 30 organizations seeking to shape the burgeoning farm to school movement. Initially led by staff from the Community Food Security Coalition and the Urban & Environmental Policy Institute at Occidental College. National Farm to School Network is now a project of the Tides Center. Learn more: Website The Podcast Our conversation ranges across topics, but always comes back to the farm-to-school movement and the importance of nutrition in our everyday lives. Starting even in pre-school, it’s incredibly important to learn about proper nutrition. Anapuma Joshi is a huge part of the movement to bring better nutrition, and thereby education, to schools across America. The topics are wide ranging, from Anupama’s life growing up in India and traveling around the world doing various non-profit work, to starting this network to bring healthy, local and sustainable food to schools. Love the show? If you love our show, please support us by: Sharing it with your friends Leaving a comment on the show notes Writing a review on iTunes or Facebook Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform Donating on Patreon Contacting us to learn about sponsorship opportunities Contacting us for a feature/interview

Kimberly is on a journey to bring mindfulness to the kitchen classroom. She served with FoodCorps in Oakland and currently educates students in Berkeley, cooking with them and teaching them how not to “yuck my yum” or cast judgement on their own personal enjoyment of food. She talks about allowing space for young people to discover their personal connection to whole foods and the challenges of social pressures that students face while exploring their taste buds.

Billy Shore and Producer Paul "Woody" Woodhull are riding 300 miles in 3 days in Santa Rosa to help raise millions of dollars to end childhood hunger in America today so we are offering a reprise of this fascinating discussion. If you want to support the Chef Cycle ride and No Kid Hungry Please click on this link ( https://tinyurl.com/WoodyTurns62 ), to learn how you can join me in the fight to end childhood hunger here in the United States. Every $1 you donate can help connect a child with up to 10 meals.What do business and politics have in common in today’s climate? Panera Bread Founder and Chairman of the Board Ron Shaich and FoodCorps Co-Founder and CEO Curt Ellis discuss how responsible leadership can inform both business and politics and the central role that food could play. “One of the most powerful things we can do as leaders is first, tell ourselves the truth,” says Shaich. “The hardest part of making decisions is the uncertainty that occurs… You need to project the confidence to everybody to get them over the hurdle while you yourself are unsure.” Ellis describes a key leadership moment when FoodCorps began developing a whole new realm of business skills to address the supply side of school food. “The decision to say: ‘We believe we have the ability to get good at something we’re not yet good at’ was a real decision to put ourselves out there,” he believes. Ellis sees the power of food in addressing political problems. “Food is this place where so many of the challenges that we must learn how to solve in our country intersect. Food is the place where social justice and racial justice meet environmental sustainability and public health,” he says. Shaich laments the problems created by short-term thinking in business and politics. “We need to examine why our politics has gotten so short term, so coarse and so ‘it’s my way or the highway,’” he says. “Unless we can solve that, we’re not going to be the country in the future that we’ve been in the past.” Get inspired as two leaders who have found ways to change the world through food share their advice on leadership and making a lasting impact.

What do business and politics have in common in today’s climate? Panera Bread Founder and Chairman of the Board Ron Shaich and FoodCorps Co-Founder and CEO Curt Ellis discuss how responsible leadership can inform both business and politics and the central role that food could play. “One of the most powerful things we can do as leaders is first, tell ourselves the truth,” says Shaich. “The hardest part of making decisions is the uncertainty that occurs… You need to project the confidence to everybody to get them over the hurdle while you yourself are unsure.” Ellis describes a key leadership moment when FoodCorps began developing a whole new realm of business skills to address the supply side of school food. “The decision to say: ‘We believe we have the ability to get good at something we’re not yet good at’ was a real decision to put ourselves out there,” he believes. Ellis sees the power of food in addressing political problems. “Food is this place where so many of the challenges that we must learn how to solve in our country intersect. Food is the place where social justice and racial justice meet environmental sustainability and public health,” he says. Shaich laments the problems created by short-term thinking in business and politics. “We need to examine why our politics has gotten so short term, so coarse and so ‘it’s my way or the highway,’” he says. “Unless we can solve that, we’re not going to be the country in the future that we’ve been in the past.” Get inspired as two leaders who have found ways to change the world through food share their advice on leadership and making a lasting impact.

Host Jenna Liut is thrlled to welcome Deb Eschmeyer to the show today. A dedicated and passionate food system reformer, Deb's work has included organic farming; co-founding the national nonprofit, FoodCorps; and serving as the Executive Director of Let’s Move! and the Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition in the Obama Administration. Currently, she is the VP of Communications and Community Affairs at Danone North America. In this episode, we will more about how – in each of these roles – she has worked to create a more sustainable, healthy and just food system, and the lessons she has learned along the way. We will also discuss one of her most recent projects at Danone sponsoring the Slow Food Nations, a festival of flavor, culture and exploration happening in Denver, CO from July 13 – 15th. Eating Matters is powered by Simplecast.

Whitney Pratt didn't take the typical path of a Georgetown graduate. Instead of pursuing finance or business, Whitney took a job as a Service Member for FoodCorps, a branch of AmeriCorp that aims to help education youth about healthy food. After that, Whitney stayed in Montana and became the Farm Manager of Purple Frog Gardens, a local organic working farm in Montana. -- Resources mentioned in this episode: The Food Project, Boston The Farmer to Farmer Podcast The Dirty Life Farm Hands Nourish Lentil Underground Purple Frog Gardens on Instagram Hungry Podcast If you're interested in starting your own farm program or just want to chat to Whitney about the work she's doing, get in touch with her via email. -- Join the conversation on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, and try our repurposed coffee body scrub. Don't forget to subscribe, review, and share this podcast with other eco-warriors. We read all of your reviews and your positive ratings help us spread the word and spur more eco-warriors to action. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/trashtalking/support

On this episode host Lucy Gellman talks to Dawn Crayco, Connecticut Program Director at FoodCorps, about what a service year in anti-hunger advocacy and education really means.

Anna Swanson and Meg Stratton on School and Community Gardens Helping kids and community members understand food origins. Megan is a student at Binghamton University, and was drawn into the world of food and agriculture as a powerful way to address a range of current environmental, social, and ethical issues. After graduating with a self-designed degree focused on sustainable food systems, she moved to Glocester to join the FoodCorps. As a two-term FoodCorps service member, Meghan has been involved in all aspects of the Backyard Growers' school programs. Anna graduated from the College of William and Mary with a BA in Africana Studies and a minor in Environmental Studies.  Looking for a way to integrate her desire to work for social justice and her interest in environmental sustainability, Anna became Backyard Growers' first FoodCorps service member in the fall of 2013. After her year of service, she moved back to her hometown of Philadelphia, where she taught farm, food, and nutrition classes on the farm and in Philadelphia schools. In this podcast: Greg chats with an inspiring couple of women from Backyard Growers. Anna and Meghan help explain the purpose of this community organization and how satisfying it is to watch kids and community members learn about growing food and cooking the food they grow. Go to www.urbanfarm.org/backyardgrowers for more information, photos and links on this podcast and to hear from our other great guests.

What is a sustainable food system? Former undersecretary of the USDA, Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of Sustainability at George Washington University talks about what's possible, what's happening and what to hope for. At George Washington University, Dr. Merrigan leads the GW Sustainability Collaborative, GW Food Institute, and serves as Professor of Public Policy. She serves as a Co-Chair for AGree, Board Director for the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and FoodCorps, a member of the Harvard Pilgrim Healthy Food Fund Advisory Committee, Senior Advisor at the Kendall Foundation, and steering committee member of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors of the National Council for Science and the Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme led initiative TEEB for Agriculture & Food. Recognizing the history and scope of her work, Time Magazine named Kathleen among the “100 most influential people in the world” in 2010.

What is a sustainable food system? Former undersecretary of the USDA, Kathleen Merrigan, Executive Director of Sustainability at George Washington University talks about what's possible, what's happening and what to hope for. At George Washington University, Dr. Merrigan leads the GW Sustainability Collaborative, GW Food Institute, and serves as Professor of Public Policy. She serves as a Co-Chair for AGree, Board Director for the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture and FoodCorps, a member of the Harvard Pilgrim Healthy Food Fund Advisory Committee, Senior Advisor at the Kendall Foundation, and steering committee member of the Council of Environmental Deans and Directors of the National Council for Science and the Environment and the United Nations Environment Programme led initiative TEEB for Agriculture & Food. Recognizing the history and scope of her work, Time Magazine named Kathleen among the “100 most influential people in the world” in 2010.

Curtis "Curt" Ellis shares his graduation from Yale and becoming an American filmmaker, social entrepreneur, and advocate for sustainable agriculture and healthy food.

Meet Oregon's FoodCorps Fellow Emily Ritchie as she talks about how Oregon FoodCorps Members provide over 1,500 culturally rich and diverse students with hands-on gardening and nutrition education, integrated into summer enrichment programs, after-school programs, and summer garden clubs.

Tired of lousy food for your kids in school? Michelle Markesteyn Ratcliffe, the Oregon Department of Agriculture’s Farm to School Manager is helping to make a difference in Oregon schools. She brought FoodCorps to Oregon. She works to increase access to healthier food and food education for children and communities by linking farmers, fisherman and ranchers to school food programs.

It’s been more than five years since the inception of FoodCorps, the AmeriCorps division that sends young service members into school gardens, classrooms, cafeterias, and kitchens, where they’re tasked with generating excitement and support for healthy whole food. Today’s guests describe how it’s done. Idealism is the catalyst. But it’s creativity, tenacity, and–most important–humility that really make it work. This program was brought to you by Visit Napa Valley.

This week we interview special guest, Tara Whitsitt, of Fermentation on Wheels. Show notes: Tara Whitsitt Fermentation on Wheels [Classifieds “bus” Craigslist](http://portland.craigslist.org/search/?sort=rel&areaID=9&subAreaID=&query=bus&catAbb=sss) FoodCorps [SCHEDULE Fermentation on Wheels](http://www.fermentationonwheels.com/?page_id=9) [VOLUNTEER Fermentation on Wheels](http://www.fermentationonwheels.com/?page_id=19) [Fermentation on Wheels Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/fermentationonwheels) Tara Whitsitt (tarawhitsitt) on Twitter Rate us on iTunes. Thanks for your support! Send your feedback to podcast@fermup.com or connect with us on Twitter, Facebook or Google+.