Posts Tagged ‘Washington D.C.’

Posted by Jody Tick | August 16th, 2010

There has been a lot of buzz and excitement about the new leadership and direction of the DCPS food services.  The conversation continued yesterday at a DCPS Community Forum, where about 60 parents, teachers, food service professionals, and community organizations gathered to ask questions of DCPS Food Services Director Jeff Mills, Chief Operations Officer Tony Tata, and Director of Health & Wellness Diana Bruce.

As an active DCPS parent, and a program director at the Capital Area Food Bank, I recognized almost every face in the room – fellow parent activist Constance Newman; garden educator Kacie Warner; and anti-hunger advocate Kristin Roberts; just to name a few.  Each of those wonderful stakeholders could be so much more than just a face in the crowd.  We could be valuable assets to the DCPS school meal system, and advocates in support of the changes you plan to make.

Since coming in to town a few months ago, the DCPS food services team has undertaken incredible efforts to transform D.C. school meals. This has been a challenge, given that D.C. school meals have a rocky history plagued by contract mismanagement, financial accountability issues, food safety concerns, and inconsistent leadership.  Jeff Mills and his team have inherited a 60,000 meal-a-day beast of a system, and have been quick to make big promises about how they’re going to turn it around on a dime.  To their credit, they’ve made huge expansions to breakfast in the classroom, piloting supper programs at after-school programs, taking on two new vendors as pilot projects, and hiring new staff.  And there are big promises of things to come, such as a garden-kitchen educational program, special celebratory events, a totally new menu based on unprocessed, fresh foods, 20% local produce, and compliance with IOM standards… the list goes on.

But who’s calling the shots?  What is the end goal?  Where are we headed?

All the people in that room last night are on the same side as Jeff and his team.  We want the great things for our kids and our community that they rattled off – more fresh, unprocessed foods, more local produce, better access to school meals.  But we understand that it won’t be easy to get those foods on D.C. cafeteria trays, and then get kids eat them.  You’ll need the community to be your allies in this.  But a few things need to change.

First, you must engage us. We need a formal system for providing input and giving feedback.  It is not enough for you to stand in front of us and tell us what’s happening.  We need to have a formal “Advisory Committee” comprised of a wide swath of community members and national experts to be a part of the planning and execution of the new DCPS school meal operation.  We need this NOW, as plans for the future are being shaped and defined, not after they have already been developed.

Second, slow down. Nobody is expecting a barrage of reforms that will solve every aspect of the DCPS school meals all at once.  The issues plaguing the DCPS school food system run deep, and have been decades in the making (as you probably know better than we do).  We would rather see a few simple, measurable goals achieved than dozens of efforts pulled together quickly.

Third, show us a strategic plan. This city has seen too many well-intentioned but piecemeal efforts to improve the health and well-being of our youth.  We need to be thinking not months, but years into the future at what DCPS food services will look like.  Tony Tata himself said that DCPS has no idea what this operation will look like after this year, and that’s unacceptable.  Other large, urban school districts have overcome the same issues we are facing and are serving the types of meals we strive to serve.  Let us learn from their successes and failures, and develop a strategic plan to get where we all want to go, with attention to the unique strengths and weaknesses we have here in the nation’s capital.

Fourth, be transparent. Keep us in the loop with your plans, the criteria you use to evaluate foods, how you spend our taxpayer dollars, where your food is coming from and what’s down the pipeline.  It’s not enough for you to give us vague responses to our questions from time to time – stay ahead of the curve and provide us with concrete information.

You can have our 100% support in these efforts if you engage us, and make calculated, strategic change towards our common goals, and are transparent with the community you’re serving.  And believe me, it is going to take our support and buy-in on a much deeper level to realize the ambitious goals that we all have for D.C. school food.  We owe it to the thousands of children who depend on these meals each day to work together on this while we have the chance.  Let’s get it right.

Posted by Andrea Northup | July 15th, 2010

This is the story of a rising D.C. high school senior’s experience volunteering with the D.C. Farm to School Network, a program of the Capital Area Food Bank that works to get more healthy, local foods into D.C. schools.  Bella Herold volunteered during a special event – Strawberries & Salad Greens – when the Network [...]

Posted by Xi Wang | March 9th, 2010

DC Food Not Bombs is an adhocratic group that shares vegan and vegetarian meals to promote healthy eating, peace, non-violence, community, and the reduction of waste in our economies. Barrett Jones made this short video of some of the behind-the-scenes preparation and serving.

[Cross posted to DC Food Not Bombs]

Posted by Kathryn Baer | February 24th, 2010

Cross-posted on Poverty and Policy

Tucked away in the Fiscal Year 2010 appropriations for the Department of Defense are some other appropriations Congress wanted to fast-track. One provides a total of $400 million more to help states–and the District of Columbia–cope with increasing pressures on their food stamp programs.

The costs of food stamps themselves are covered by the federal government. But state and local agencies have to administer the program. The federal government ordinarily picks up about 50% of the administrative costs, leaving states responsible for the rest.

The supplement will increase the federal share, with the greatest amounts going to the states with the highest percentages of households in the food stamp program and the greatest recent increases in the number participating. The District will get nearly $1.5 million.

The recession has vastly increased applications, caseloads and, with them, needs to periodically re-verify eligibility. Backlogs have become a serious problem. In our own backyard, Maryland is under court order because of excessive processing delays. At least four other states have settled similar class action lawsuits. Texas has been told it may lose federal funds if it doesn’t speed up its system.

Last year, the District got a bonus performance award for the timeliness of its applications processing, along with an award for program access, i.e., the percentage of eligible residents enrolled in its program.

But applications processing doesn’t measure how long people have to wait to complete the intake process. We read of people waiting hours–even days–to get the required meeting with an Income Maintenance Administration staff member. No wonder, given the staff cutbacks and rising unemployment rate.

And bonus award notwithstanding, the participation rate here leaves room for improvement. This means that IMA should be investing resources in outreach to low-income people who don’t know they’re eligible or are deterred by barriers real and imagined. The hassle factor, including the costs of repeated trips to an IMA service center, are surely among the former.

Now IMA could have reduced its administrative burdens by swiftly implementing the Food Stamp Expansion Act because making more people categorically eligible would reduce needs to go through the complex process of calculating assets. It might have gotten a larger share of the supplement too.

We’re given to understand that it will complete implementation some time this spring. By then, it will also have its extra administrative funds. So we should see shorter waiting times in the service centers, quick turnarounds on applications and a higher participation rate.

This, of course, assumes that the Fenty administration uses the extra funds as Congress intended. Staff at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities have warned that states could reduce their own funding for food administration and use the new federal funds instead.

But surely that won’t happen here. Will it?

Posted by Kathryn Baer | February 16th, 2010

Cross-posted from Poverty and Policy.

Under TEFAP (the Emergency Food Assistance Program), the U.S. Department of Agriculture distributes food commodities to states, which then distribute them to food banks and/or directly to emergency food providers like soup kitchens and pantries. As I recently wrote, the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is said to need a supplemental appropriation because it can’t otherwise provide enough food commodities to meet the increasing pressures on food banks.

Still on my learning curve, I contacted Marian Peele, the Director of Agency Relations at the Capital Area Food Bank, to find out what the situation is there.

CAFB is the Feeding America network partner for the greater Washington D.C. area. It uses federal funds channeled through the D.C. and Virginia state governments to purchase TEFAP food commodities. It also gets free TEFAP bonus commodities when they’re available and suitable to its needs.