What is the Community Eligibility Provision, or CEP?
What We Do
Our goal: by 2030, every child has access to food education and nourishing food in school.
Students participate in a garden lesson. (Portland, OR)
FoodCorps partners with schools and communities to nourish kids’ health, education, and sense of belonging. Our AmeriCorps members support educators and school nutrition leaders to provide students with nourishing meals, food education, and family-driven experiences with food that celebrate and nurture the whole child. Building on our school programming, FoodCorps develops leaders, grows networks, and advocates for policy change in service of every child’s health and well-being.
Our Work
Through three key strategies—direct partnerships, community engagement, and policy and advocacy—we affect change in the following areas.
Hands-on food education
We partner directly with schools to teach kids about growing, cooking, and eating nourishing food, and advocate for broad investment in food education.
Nourishing school meals
We work with school nutrition professionals to get a variety of fresh, local, and nutritious foods on the school lunch tray.
Celebrating community through food
We use food to celebrate kids’ unique cultures and identities, and help shape cafeteria menus to be family-driven and community-rooted.
Why food in school
Food is central to kids’ physical health, emotional well-being, and connection to local traditions and community. And schools are the opportune places for kids to connect to food through hands-on, experiential learning. We partner with schools and communities in urban and rural communities across the country so kids and families have a seat at the table.
Seeing things actually start from a seed or a starter, and the miracle that happens when life grows through the dirt—I think that encourages them to want to try foods.
—Pamela Lee, Director of Nutrition Services, Ocean View School District (Oxnard, CA)
Our Policy Vision
Stories About What We Do
What Makes a Great School Garden?
Use these ideas to create a school garden where all are welcome to grow.
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FoodCorps Expands Programming to Cleveland Metropolitan School District
CMSD is one of the largest school districts in the state, home to primarily students of color.
Read moreFoodCorps Expands to Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri and Rhode Island to Provide Food Education to Thousands of New Students
The expansion underscores FoodCorps’ goal of ensuring that every child in America has access to food education and nourishing food in schools by 2030.
Read moreIn Collaboration with the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health, FoodCorps Announces $250 Million Nourishing Futures Initiative to Ensure All School Students Have Access to Food Education and Nourishing, Free Meals by 2030
White House highlights FoodCorps’ commitment to 50 million students nationwide catalyzed by support from MacKenzie Scott, Newman’s Own Foundation, Inclusive Capital Partners Foundation and Walmart Foundation.
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Sharing Indigenous Cooking Traditions in New Mexico
Through Magia de Maíz, FoodCorps service member Luis Ramos and local chef Mateo Herrera teach students about Indigenous food traditions.
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School Nutrition Directors Feed Communities Through the Pandemic
By Madison Morse for FoodTank School nutrition directors across the United States are finding new solutions to ensure students receive uninterrupted meal service. Thirty million children in the U.S. rely on school for at least one of their daily meals and as a result of the pandemic, this figure is growing, according to a report from … Continued
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