
What is the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP?
URGENT ACTION: Tell Congress to protect funding for school meals! Take 2 minutes to make your voice heard.
Serving with FoodCorps is in many ways about community organizing. Members build skills around mobilizing their communities towards a unified cause. We encourage alums to share their stories from service to help build the case for policies that support healthy food access and education. Many commit to building careers focused on this very work. We hold an online course for alumni focused on expanding their knowledge of the political process and building advocacy skills.
Alekya is a second-year master’s student at Carnegie Mellon University studying Public Policy and Management. During the second year of this program, students complete a fellowship at a site in Washington, DC while taking graduate courses at night. As a Heinz Policy Fellow at USDA, Alekya provides policy guidance to SNAP program operators, tracks implementation of new policies, responds to client inquiries, and works on program innovation projects.
Alekya Prathivadi, Heinz Policy Fellow, USDA SNAP Policy Division, MT'18
Kendal Chavez works on the farm to school team at Farm to Table, a small nonprofit based in New Mexico that focuses on food systems’ impact on the local, regional, and national levels through strengthening community-based programs and policy. Prior to joining Farm to Table, Kendal served as a service member and state fellow for the FoodCorps New Mexico program. Kendal brings experience designing, facilitating, and supporting farm to school programs in local, state, regional, and national contexts. Her work is deeply rooted in community and the unique attributes, challenges, and perspectives that each place brings to the conversation around food. Kendal focuses on capacity, coalition-building, and systems change as the guiding principles of her work. She also serves on FoodCorps’ Board of Directors.