Giving Compass' Take:

• FoodCorps describes how it plans to connect and support students with healthy meals during COVID-19. 

• What can donors do to ensure that kids are still able to access healthy food amid school closures? 

• Learn more about food access and coronavirus. 

FoodCorps’ mission is to connect kids to healthy food at school. What happens when the school communities we serve are shuttered?

The public health crisis unfolding around COVID-19 has triggered an atmosphere of stress, uncertainty, and fear for all of us. While emergency responses like school and business closures are necessary to keep communities healthy, they will have disproportionate ramifications for Americans who already struggle to make ends meet. This crisis has exposed what we’ve known for years: that there are deep-seated structural inequities in our education and public health systems.

We’re particularly concerned for the 30 million kids who rely on school meals for their daily nourishment, as well as their families. We know countless Americans’ health and livelihoods will be gravely impacted by COVID-19, and that catastrophic economic consequences of the pandemic will be felt long after the worst of the virus has passed. Like many others, we’re anxious and frustrated that so much—about the virus and its likely aftermath—is still unknown.

Here’s what we’re doing, starting immediately, to respond to COVID-19:

  • Supporting our service members and staff. We’re guiding some service members through safe redeployment to alternative service opportunities, including supporting emergency feeding services in areas impacted by school closures. We’re also enabling meaningful temporary remote service, such as lesson planning and webinar-based education.
  • Advocating for federal action. The COVID-19 pandemic is shining a light on glaring structural inequities in our public health and education systems. FoodCorps calls for the immediate passage of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which will take initial steps to ensure that families continue to have access to school meals and SNAP benefits. Children will go hungry and families will suffer if Congress and our administration do not provide solutions. We are paying close attention to the leadership of our federal and state officials.

Read the full article about connecting kids to healthy food at FoodCorps.