What You'll Do
While FoodCorps service plans vary from site to site, community to community, and school to school, all service members will focus their energy on programs and activities that support FoodCorps’ three pillars of service: knowledge, engagement and access.
Knowledge: Service members teach children about food and nutrition in the classroom by developing and teaching lesson plans to grades ranging from kindergarten through high school, integrating activities into subjects such as math, science and history, working with teachers and school administrators to increase food and nutrition education in curricula, and more.
Engagement: Service members grow healthy food with students, teachers, and community members in school and community gardens, dynamic educational settings where kids can get their hands dirty and experience what they’re learning first-hand. While some service members expand/maintain already-existing school gardens, greenhouses and hoop houses, others work to establish new gardens: the planning process: meetings with school administrators and teachers, fundraising, garden design, etc. Service members develop garden sustainability plans and recruit community volunteers to ensure that the projects they start last into the future.
Access: Service members change what's for lunch by sourcing food from local farms for cafeterias, promoting local foods through cafeteria taste tests, working with school food directors and staff to integrate healthier foods into breakfast, lunch and snack programs, and more.
Depending on where you serve, the amount of time you spend on each of these three types of service will vary. Through the application, interview, and selection process, we'll do our best to match selected service members with positions that align with their experiences and interests.
Service members will also participate in National Days of Service, track their impact via service reporting and program evaluation requirements, and of course, have fun!
A Day in the Life
Here's a sample of a day in the life of a FoodCorps service member, written by Sebastian Naskaris who's serving in North Carolina (pictured above):
- 5:30am Wake up, 7 sets of 12 pull-ups and 7 sets of 35 pushups. Breakfast and green tea.
- 6:30am NPR and finishing touches on lesson "Sweet potato nutrition and tasting"
- 7:30am BOOTS ON, green tea for the road
- 9:00am Teach nutrition and tasting lesson at Aberdeen Elementary School
- 10:00am Green tea
- 10:05am Get idea about how to support local farmer getting carrots into Moore County's school cafeterias
- 10:07 Call extension agent about possible method for expediting local carrot farmer's GAP certification
- 10:30am Call local farmers' market director, finagle said farmer's carrots into today's market to help farmer expedite GAP certification tracing requirement
- 10:35am green tea
- 11:00am Meet with community food system leaders and extension agents in Moore County to begin planning of community farm
- 1:30pm Drive 45minute to Ellerbe, NC, site of carrot farmer's farm.
- 2:15pm Harvest carrots with farmer and extension agent
- 2:45pm Help label each bag to use in a trace in order to expedite GAP certification
- 3:30pm Drive back to Moore County Farmer's market (turn volume up while listening to mix-tape from my girlfriend)
- 4:15pm Unload carrots at farmers market, set up display in back of pick up truck
- 5:30pm Close up, keep note of labels that were sold v. those that weren't.
- 6:00pm Go home, eat some carrots, put feet up, make mental list of things I didn't get to today. Tomorrow's another day
For other examples of how FoodCorps service members spend their time, you can read more Day in the Life pieces by Kirsten, Jill, Daniel, Dana, Rachel and Robyn on the below blogs:
