Ideas to consider
Here you’ll find examples of ideas that could be included as part of the school food system project you’re designing. These are not recommended as stand-alone projects for these awards. These ideas may enhance your community engagement or project quality as components of your innovative project.
Please see Inspiration for Projects for examples of innovative, community-driven project ideas that improve the local school food system.
The ideas below can be filtered by type of project and by partners. You can select more than one category in each field. The more categories you select, the more narrow your results will be.
Menu Audit
Identify where local foods are already incorporated or where local foods could easily be incorporated into a current menu.
Project includes opportunities to include student perspectives and opinions in audit plans/metrics.
Mobile Farmers Market
Mobile farmers markets visit schools and provide nutrition or agricultural education and/or include their products in school meals.
Example
Needs Assessment
Complete an assessment of schools’ assets and needs to identify areas of opportunity and plan for improvements.
Partner with a health nonprofit to develop recipes
Partner with a health nonprofit that has a dietician or nutritionist on staff who can support in the development of recipes for SFAs that incorporate local foods.
Producers Advocate for Local Foods
Local growers and producers meet with relevant school personnel to help create school/district buy-in and support for Food Service Directors who are interested in using local foods.
Salad Bar
Create a salad bar, featuring local produce, in the school cafeteria to encourage students to create their own salads.
Example
Resources