Casey Cavanaugh speaks into a microphone at the Kindred Convening in June 2026
Casey Cavanaugh at the Kindred Fellowship Convening in June 2026.

As kids around the country celebrate the start of summer break, FoodCorps is celebrating the graduation of our first cohort of Kindred Fellows. The Kindred Fellowship for School Nutrition Leaders guides school food leaders with a vision for change in their communities to bring their visions to life.

Over six months of learning, reflection, conversation, and advocacy, this inaugural cohort of leaders—nutritionists and chefs, educators and community organizers—channeled their passions into individual SEED projects, putting their experience, insights, and learning into practice while supporting one another along the way.

To kick off the search for our next cohort of Kindred Fellows, we asked graduating Fellows to share what this experience meant to them, their communities, and the future of school food. Here’s what they had to say.

A Community of Peers

As the National Nutrition Consultant for the Bureau of Indian Education under the Department of Interior, Casey Cavanaugh is tasked with bringing more Indigenous foods to school lunches. Being the agency’s only dietitian, she said that joining a community of Fellows who understood the unique challenges of the school food space helped her work through challenges—and slow down. “We have this little space where it’s, like, you’re with a cohort of nutrition professionals, you can talk about things that are relevant to your work, or things that are challenges that you’re dealing with and the strategies around them,” she says. “These are my people. And I’m realizing changes are not as fast as you think you can implement them.” 

A New Perspective

After serving with FoodCorps, Ruby Forde went on to become an Outdoor and Experiential Learning Educator for Oxford Hills School District in western Maine. The fellowship has helped her make connections between the garden and the challenges of driving change in institutional spaces. “I go out into the garden with the kids, and we’re planting seeds, and I’m telling these children that there’s so much that needs to go into taking care of this seed so that we can produce the food that we want to eat in the fall. It’s not an overnight magical thing that happens. So when I go outside in the garden, I’m not expecting a change to take place immediately,” she says. “You have to put in the real time and effort and care in order for these things to unfold.”

Turning Data into District Change

Roberto Gonzalez brings a data-driven approach to his work, which he’s been using to grow the scratch-cooking program at Proviso Township High Schools in Chicagoland’s suburbs. From incorporating student input to sharing learnings with the community, he’s become passionate about bringing the whole school community into his process. “The fellowship has made me more intentional about how I lead, asking what we’re truly trying to achieve so we’re not just going over the same hurdle. Before, when I would hear a problem, I would just jump, fix it, and go back to our day-to-day,” Roberto says. “Now it’s like, how can we stop this so it no longer occurs, and build a sustainable system that keeps running once we’re long gone?” 

The Bigger Picture

Courtney Chapman came to school nutrition after 15 years in restaurant kitchens, overseeing the central kitchen at Minneapolis Public Schools. Her Kindred SEED project had her crafting a cookbook for some 500 graduating seniors, connecting students to their roots—with recipes served in their schools using locally sourced and relevant ingredients—as they set off on new adventures. It’s a reminder that transformative school nutrition can shape habits for a lifetime. “We’re all doing this together,” Courtney says of the cohort, “and doing it for a reason of not only feeding the kids today, but having them take the food knowledge that we’re giving them [throughout their lives].”

Join the next class of Kindred Fellows: If you’re ready to drive change through school food in your community—or know someone who is—applications are now open for our 2026–27 cohort. The deadline to apply is August 31, 2026. Learn more and apply now.

Special thanks to Janvika Shah for her support in interviewing the Kindred Fellows for this blog.