FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders that connects kids to food and helps them grow up healthy. We do that by placing motivated leaders in limited-resource communities for a year of public service.
Service Activities
Service members work with schools, service site organizations and local communities to build healthy school food environments. They do this in a variety of ways:
Service members focus on teaching children in grades K-8 about food and nutrition in the classroom or cafeteria by delivering engaging, hands-on lessons, 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.
Service members grow healthy food with students, teachers, and community members in school 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. Service members develop garden sustainability plans and recruit community volunteers to ensure that the projects they start last into the future.
Service members focus on district-level school nutrition projects that will work to change what students eat at school everyday. Service members will work with school nutrition professionals to integrate healthy foods into breakfast, lunch and snack programs and more. Under the supervision of district-level school nutrition leaders, and with ongoing support and training from FoodCorps, these members will help to advance the goals and vision for school meal quality in the districts where they serve.
Service members help build schoolwide cultures of health by building strong, collaborative relationships with teachers, families, and school administrators, recruiting and training volunteers, organizing committees and running meetings, talking to press and public officials.
Service members spend time learning and participating in trainings, helping FoodCorps and schools assess the impact they are having, and raising money to help support the local projects when allowable.
Community Need Addressed
FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders that connects kids to food and helps them grow up healthy. We do that by placing motivated leaders in limited-resource communities for a year of public service. Serving under the direction of local partner organizations, our service members focus on three areas of service:
1. Hands-on learning: students grow, cook, and taste new foods, which builds their skills and changes food preferences
2. Healthy school meals: the cafeteria experience steers students towards the healthiest options and gets them excited to try new healthy foods
3. Schoolwide culture of health: as a whole, the school community and environment – from hallways to classrooms to cafeteria to grounds – celebrates healthy food. We measure our success in terms of changes in children, schools, and systems.
Position Outcomes
About 73% of FoodCorps schools had measurably healthier school food environments by the end of the school year, and in schools with more of FoodCorps’ hands-on learning activities, children are eating up to three times as many fruits and vegetables.
Benefits
Childcare assistance if eligible, Health coverage, Relocation allowance (if applicable), Stipend, Student loan forbearance, Training
Up to $22,000-26,000 living stipend for Service Members, paid bi-weekly.
$6,345 AmeriCorps Segal Education Award, upon successful completion of your term of service
Health insurance*
Partial childcare reimbursement, if you qualify
Student loan forbearance, if you qualify
Training, mentorship, and professional development opportunities
*Participation in the FoodCorps health insurance option is required if you cannot provide proof of existing coverage.
Skills you will gain
Education, School Food Procurement, Health & Nutrition
Competencies You Will Develop
Communication
Demonstrate sensitivity and empathy
Creativity & Problem Solving
Able to identify and define the problem
Decisions
Involve people appropriately in decisions that may impact them
Planning
Able to prioritize various competing tasks, Create plan of action, schedule tasks so that work is completed on time, Set goals
Service
Honor the privilege of being able to work with and for those being served, Recognize the importance of maintaining privacy and confidentiality of those being served, Understand and anticipate the needs of others, Understand the significance of maintaining a healthful and safe environment