Recapping Our National School Lunch Week #LunchChat

On October 14, FoodCorps was joined by many of our nonprofit partners, school nutrition directors, educators, and others for a Twitter chat celebrating National School Lunch Week and the recent release of our newest report, Nourishing Learners. 

This year’s National School Lunch Week comes at a pivotal time for school nutrition leaders, as nationwide supply chain challenges — on top of the ongoing pandemic — are making it more difficult than ever to source and serve nourishing school meals. 

But school nutrition leaders are innovating, collaborating, and coming up with creative solutions to these problems, in many cases moving mountains to keep kids fed. During the Twitter chat, we heard from participants about local procurement, greater collaborations across schools, and other ways that school nutrition teams are overcoming the current crisis. 

Participants also uplifted universal school meals as a solution to many of the challenges with school nutrition, like low participation rates and the stigma associated with receiving free or reduced school meals. 

They also shared lots of appreciation for school nutrition teams, who are powering through one hurdle after another to continue prioritizing students’ health, happiness, and connection to school meals. 

Thank you to all who joined this Twitter chat!