I am in MA

Hi Everyone! Welcome to this morning’s Community of Practice call! Please introduce yourself by name, position and where work, and share one thing that is going well this week!

Leslie Pring, Nutrition Director with Twin Rivers. One thing going well is the start of having supper as part of our meal program now!

Erin

Barbara Wells, Supervisor, Food Service, Pemberton Twp., NJ. Was able to order masks this week.

welcome Tammy

Melina Barker, Oregon Farm to School & School Garden Network

Barbara Hughes, County of SD HHSA, Nutrition Policy Advisor. Ability to add nutrition info into some meal distributions for the families.

Jacqueline Ibarra San Diego Hunger Coalition

Good morning from Ken Hecht on behalf of Christina and himself, UC Nutrition Policy Institute

Heather Berkoben, Dairy Council of California.

Good morning this is Rosa from Calistoga JUSD.....we are finally in the groove with meals this week.

Katie Dooley-Hedrick, Associate Director, No Kid Hungry CA

Stephanie Bruce Palm Springs USD We celebrated school lunch hero day yesterday since we only serve once a week and the girl scouts brought CASES of cookies to our staff!!!!!

Maddy Moritsch, Alliance for a Healthier Generation

Hi everyone! I'm Nick Anicich, Farm to School Program Lead with the California Department of Food and Agriculture

Nora Stewart, CHIP's Farm to Institution Center in San Diego County. We facilitate the San Diego County Farm to School Taskforce

Erin Primer here San Luis Coastal Unified - Director of Food and Nutrition Services. Summer plans have been sketched out which feels great!

Kristen Tekell, Sonoma Valley Food Service Program Manager, finding a groove this week with our assembly line!

Holly Hungerford Cocking, Director of Nutrition Services, Springs Charter Schools

Sarah Doherty, Nutrition Services Director, North Monterey County USD

Hi everyone! I'm Monica Parra, Health Education Specialist for Merced County Department of Public Health

Marc Milton, Director of Food Service, Downey USD. Received donated masks this week and operations are smooth

Tammy White, San Jacinto Unified School District. We started serving 7 days of snack this week!

Jenileigh Harris, National Farm to School Network, based in Colorado

Hi everyone! Kristin Zellhart from Eat REAL Certified :) We were able to ship out masks to districts last week to help keep staff safe!

Anna Severns, Revolution Foods

hi great to come together, Julianna here from BCOE/ CALKIDZ

Hi everyone! Dede Duong, Food service Supervisor from Butte County Office of Education. This is my first meeting. Nice to meet you all!

Monica Drazba- CalFresh Healthy Living, UC Yolo County. Our teachers are still interested in delivering nutrition education during school closures :)

Dylan Hatami, West Contra Costa USD, Area Supervisor - Nutrition Specialist. We are celebrating School Nutrition Employee Week at our district

Welcome, welcome!

Hi everyone this is Perri Carroll. Senior Wellness Specialist in the Growth and Nutrition Division at University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Alyson Foote, Project Manager, Dairy Council of California

Yousef Buzayan, Farm to Cafeteria Program Manager, Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF)

Morning from CA! MHUSD, Director of Student Nutrition

Angelica Castañon, Sr Prgrm Specialist with National Education Association, D.C.

Jennifer Huang, Project Manager at FreshRealm; first time joining this meeting to learn more about school foodservice in this unusual time!

Jennifer McNeil, and I am a former child nutrition director and the Founder of LunchAssist - going well this week is the collaboration with our team. I so appreciate my coworkers, clients and collaborators <3

Deirdre Kleske, County of San Diego HHSA, and San Diego County Childhood Obesity Initiative

Hi everyone. I’m Debbi Dodson, Recycling Coordinator with the Carton Council. I help school districts implement, expand and improve milk and juice carton recycling programs. Best thing this week is 120 people participated in a webinar I organized that featured the financial benefits of using reusable school food ware instead of disposables.

Shoutout to Turlock Unified for this image, and for documenting all the great work their staff is doing with such beautiful photos!

Hi Everyone: What are some creative solutions that have inspired you during the emergency meal service operations?

Hi All--No Kid Hungry CA is celebrating hunger heroes all month with our #thankahungerhero campaign! You can nominate folks to the league of hunger heroes in the document attached!

Hi Katie - great to know! Thanks for sharing. :)

Great Job Vince!

Vince you’re awesome!!!

Hi Everyone: What types of conversations are taking place in your district about re-opening schools?

Conversations:

1. Is anyone installing plexi-glass like the supermarkets?

Yes we are. in the process at schools now

Conversations are just starting on re-opening schools. We are taking an "if/then" approach to come up with different strategies since there is not a lot of guidance/info out there.

All front office areas will be installed

Plexi in all front offices is being installed now

Maryland Dept of Education just posted a framework for reopening. It's a resource for local school systems to use when working at the local level to plan for reopening schools. There is a section on school nutrition.

http://marylandpublicschools.org/newsroom/Documents/MSDERecoveryPlan.pdf

Thank you, Chela! We will check this out and share.

Thank you Chela!!!

How can I get on the Listserv for these community of practice calls? I haven't been receiving follow-up emails.

Thank you for letting us know, Emma! I will email you directly to make sure you have them.

FYI that resource from Maryland is expected to be updated in the next week. Check back for enhanced Nutrition info

Hi Emma - I will reach out to you directly for your email. Is anyone else having trouble receiving the follow-up emails?

Me! (Amanda Mascia)

(Somehow I can only log in through my colleague)

Some CNC's in CA are stating that meal pattern and area eligibility is expiring at the end of the school year not june 30th. Do you have information on that Jennifer?

We had the same question, Stephanie :)

FWIW--We have heard that CDE has applied directly to USDA for extensions to the existing waivers. Hopefully that will be approved soon

I was on the MARO call this morning. For FFVP parent pick up, and extension of non-congregate feeding, they said states had to specifically request a waiver.

CA did request the extension.

Stephanie, which extension

So apprciate you Jennifer

Thank you Jennifer!

Could we please get the link to the survey to request an extension on Triennial Assessment in CA?

Non congregrate, meal pattern, area eligibility and parent pick up

Thank you! Very helpful information on wellness policy extension.

Hi Everyone: What strategies are you using to maintain high participation? If you offer multi-day meal pick up, how is this going for your district?

weekly meal kits here - staff and families love it!!

Are any schools scheduling meal pickup times for parents who work full-time?

Our numbers increased when we went from 5 days of service to 1 day a week. As the weather gets warmer our numbers have been decreasing. The families really like the weekly meal kits

We're doing multi-day meal pick-up and sending home frozen entrees with reheating instructions. Still sticking pretty closely to our regular menus, so the kids get a good variety.

10 meals & 7 snacks in a paper bag, once a week. Bags are full and families are happy!

Anyone planning to serve lunch in the classroom when school resumes? (Social distancing is easier than in cafeteria.)

Multi-day meal pick-up will help as it gets hotter, too - for staff as well as families.

Christina, we allow parents to come to our facility and pick up meals if they are unable to make it to our sites.

Christina we accommodate alternative service schedules on an as-needed basis along with doing home deliveries for families unable to access a meal site.

Where are schools getting the prepackaged meal kits?

We are making them ourselves

Debra some vendors make unitized meal kits.

Thanks for the photos of FFVP! Very helpful!

Preferred Meals, I think Better 4 You Meals might

Single pick-up, 5 days of Bf/L. NSLP meal pattern guidelines being maintained. Marketing blast monthly. Also, utilizing an Interagency Agreement with a local non-profit to help deliver meals to rural areas.

Rev Foods I think is on this call, they might chime in

Thanks Yousef! San Diego County School Districts- the F2I Center can also be of support for purchasing bulk & local foods! Feel welcome to contact me: nstewart@sdchip.org

that’s an awesome model, Michael! It takes a village :)

Has anyone doing multi-day meal kits heard any concerns about families not having adequate refrigerated storage to accommodate kits for multiple kids?

Thanks, Holly! Yes, Revolution Foods is able to provide unitized meals for all meal platforms.

Thanks, Jennifer! We’d love to support folks in CA on purchasing local produce. Feel free to shoot me an email yousef@caff.org

Holly, how are you delivering meals to families that can't make it to the distributions? Coordination? Vehicle use? Staff?

Thank Anna, I thought I'd seen them on Instagram but didn't want to mispeak

We have not Anna. They have stated that the multiple milks take up too much space so we now provide a half gallon which is so much easier

No. We switched to 1/2 gallon milk which helped temendously

We utilize 85 bus routes and do some home delivery

so inspiring!

Killin' it Stephanie

LOL. We are killing ourselves getting it done. But doing what we can to make it work

1/2 gallon milk is huge!! Thanks for the reminder Tammy!

Yes, we have had an in increase of new participants since we begin using our CN staff to call families at home.

we have also transitioned to 16oz chocolate milk and 16 oz orange juice. Our kids love it!

Hi Maggie, we are 5 weeks into our 5 day meal kit model and we have not heard any concerns from the families regarding refrigerated storage. We hand out quarts of milk which has been very helpful.

This week we have started 1lb salad mix.

Just confirmed with our local libraries yesterday and while in person lunch doesn’t look the same this year, they are going to support our weekly meal kits with take home enrichment for families!

That’s so nice, Erin! Way to make that important connection :)

Last week brainstormed with local library, YMCA, and Boys & Girls Clubs.

City of San Diego is proposing closing libraries on Sun/Mon due to budget concerns. This will impact summer meals and afterschool supper programs. Are library hours threatened in other places?

Amazing! This is more needed than ever. Thank you for sharing Kari and Trish!

Thank you Lunch Assist! Training videos are so helpful right now!

Thank you for having us. If you would like to connect with a library, let me know johnsonk@plpinfo.org

Hi Everyone: What types of messaging are you most interested to communicate with families right now?

Thank you for the continual excellent resources for training and technical assistance for program staff.. You are helping so many school nutrition programs throughout Montana!

That is so cool, Katie! We’re so glad you’re joining us.

Jennifer, messaging on P-EBT is needed. Some families think they can't still get school meals if they receive the P-EBT benefit

@Jen - Meals are FREE to all children

P-EBT! The generic info provided in the tool kits is limited

What messages do you wish you could communicate to your families around school meals during the COVID19 response? If you could communicate something to your families, what do you wish they would know?

https://f2icenter.org/covid-19-partner-resources/Resources are available under the first bullet point, “Social Media Resources” in both Spanish and English! You can also email me if you have any questions: nstewart@sdchip.org

P-EBT messaging that can be distributed with the meals

LOVE that poster

FYI schools in CA are getting a 5 month extension on LCAP's this year. I stated earlier they are still due July 1 but THANK YOU to Stephanie Bruce for sharing this update/announcement that was shared yesterday.

We know oof some school districts that won’t serve parents without kids because they think they can’t be reimbursed unless they can guarantee that the meals went to kids attending their schools. Right or wrong?

Social media post for P-EBT

Link to FRAC Webinar: https://frac.salsalabs.org/webinar_commsandoutreachcovid19may72020?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=53cde6c1-3299-4b7b-9190-ba9b05061193

nice!

We can’t go very far right now.. so a good solution indeed :)

Staycation!

Hi Everyone: What will you do differently this weekend to embrace a “vacation mindset”?

@ Christina - we serve parents without kids, even parents picking up for parents who can’t leave the house for various reasons.

Last weekend, my lunchlady posse and a couple friends gathered at my house, maintained our distance, and had MUCH needed cocktails and girl talk. It made me day, weekend and week!!

I will NOT open my computer until Monday morning!

I second that!

I wont look at my work phone this weekend

Steph..... :)

set up the hammock and use it

::writes down hammock on shopping list::

Ohhh...ordering a hammock!!!

Last weekend I actually took 2 days off for the first time in months (even before cover) and will do the same this weekend! I mostly slept and binge watched Netflix but it was so nice!

covid*

Hammock! Best idea ever!

garden

Take the time to make one of my favorite dishes, wine glass in hand!

I discovered Shcitt's Creek this weekend. Need a laugh...this is it

Thank you Mickinzie

“Quarantini” @ 4’clock

No sending after 5 Friday p.m. emails

send an email recapping the week and reminding them to be safe and rest...….

Hi Everyone: Time for our open discussion. Feel free to unmute or type into this box with any stories, questions, or points of discussion. We’d like to hear from you!

With our weekly meal kit model, staff work three days/week and are off for four!!

Meditate, read, exercise!

Take care of myself Thank you Mickinzie!

planning ahead info and reg update + input from what other districts are doing!

Libraries, libraries, libraries! <Thank you>

Most useful: how to build participation discussion

Planning tools most useful!

I thought it was interesting that bulk foods are going out instead of individually packaged products. Great adjustment to the situation.

Most useful: Training tools and self care ideas. We do a Weekly SNP CHAT open to all MT SFA's so this information will be shared this afternoon. Thank you.

This is the most useful call I do every week at this time. Thank you to everyone who contributes to facilitating this weekly call!

FYI CDE doesn’t like the term “bulk” - from my experience

Erin - what should we call them instead?

Thank you so much for sharing information and the models of serving from the other locations that I learned a lot of new things today. Thanks again for inviting me today.

“Multiple day?"

This call is also so useful. The information provided is so needed, usefull and appreciaated.

“multi-day meals”

Photos are really helpful to see how others are implementing food distribution.

“multiple meals” lol

Thank you!! I enjoyed the meeting.

This call is always beneficial with the information that is provided. Helps me a lot! Thank you thank you!

You are welcome.

Thank you for the great information and materials!

Just to confirm, California is able to serve the way we have been through June 30th?

Thank you, this was very informative

is there an infographic for the P-EBT that we can share?

Thank you!

thanks all!!

Thank you!

Always an ultra helpful meeting…thank you!

Yes Tammy that is according to the USDA waiver - technically CDE still needs to confirm this so we’ll announce when that comes out!

Thanks Jen!

thanks is the most valuable call I do every week

Thank you!