Greater Newark Conservancy envisions Newark and its surrounding communities with universal and equitable access to nutritious food and a green, resilient, sustainable, and healthy urban environment for living, work, and recreation.

The organization operates New Jersey’s largest urban farm and Newark’s first outdoor environmental center, which has been visited by more than 34,000 youth. It has been providing hands-on, interdisciplinary environmental curricula to children in Newark’s schools since 1989 and currently serves more than 3,100 youth and adults through programs that emphasize healthy eating habits, improve access to nutritious foods, and nurture their skills. The Conservancy’s programs harness local residents’ capacity to improve their health and well-being.

Groundwork believes all students should have access to fresh food every day. School is where many students get most of their calories—up to two meals a day. Through its work supporting Michigan’s state-funded 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids & Farms program, Groundwork has removed barriers to healthy eating at schools.

10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids & Farms provides schools and early care and education sites up to 10 cents per meal in match funding to purchase and serve Michigan-grown fruits, vegetables, and dry beans. First piloted over 10 years ago with three schools in Northwest Lower Michigan with private funding, the program is now available statewide and implemented by the Michigan Department of Education with support from partner organizations Groundwork Center, Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems, and the Michigan Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Serving both rural and urban communities, the 2020-2021 program year impacted over 585,000 children across 57 of 83 counties from Southeast Michigan to the Upper Peninsula.

Healthy habits start young, which is why Harlem Grown’s programs target elementary-aged students. Urban farms become living classrooms and facilitate hands-on lessons. Children from urban settings are introduced to sustainable growing practices, as well as farm-based education programming. The result is a sense of membership in an environmentally conscious, sustainable community.

Harlem youth learn about the history and cultural significance of the foods they grow. This helps them identify with healthy ingredients and dishes. Children and older youth also learn about the importance of healthy eating and sustainable agricultural practices—the tools Harlem Grown uses to spread its core mission. Its programming takes a broad approach to addressing food insecurity and supporting the community’s right to food sovereignty. Food justice involves more than growing and distributing food, and food insecurity can only be tackled when education is at the heart of the solution.

Tony Hillery founded Harlem Grown in 2011, with one farm, one school partnership, and the goal of growing healthy children and building sustainable communities. Since then, Harlem Grown has become a staple in the Central Harlem community. The organization now operates five intensive school partnerships, 12 urban agricultural sites, weekly Saturday programming from April to October, a free 7-week intensive Summer Camp, farm-based education tours, after school programming at Riverton, monthly community events, and a Mobile Teaching Kitchen that travels throughout Harlem. More than 22,000 Harlem youth have been served by its programming.

Can healthy food transform the community, environment, and people of New Orleans? Grow Dat Youth Farm is on a mission to give that question a resounding yes!

Youth programs build relationships and engage through processes and work that challenge and support them as they sharpen leadership skills and learn to communicate directly and honestly.

Grow Dat Youth Farm is guided by values of sustainability, inclusion and multiculturalism, food justice, love of land, and solidarity through collective action.

Leaders work to build strong bonds, looking for and undoing oppression to enhance a more inclusive community focused on supporting the growth and learning of young adults.

Through school district partnerships, children are provided access to nutrition and fitness education, healthy scratch-cooked meals, and active recess periods.

This approach improves student outcomes, drives systemic, long-term change, and shifts school cultures. WITS strongly believes in listening closely to the needs of the school district to provide support that helps achieve the common mission to feed the city.

WITS was started in 2005 by a group of parents convinced that healthier bodies improve healthier minds—and unhealthy environments can interfere with academic achievement. Today its programs have reached more than 95,000 students in almost 200 schools.

Green Village Initiative (GVI) is growing a future for Bridgeport where everyone, in every district and every zip code, can access fresh, affordable, nutritious food that reflects the diversity of Bridgeport’s community. GVI pivoted to include food justice in its mission in 2017 to encompass its belief that food justice is racial justice!

The work to create a more just food system is more than just building a garden, it’s empowering farmers and gardeners—both novice and experienced. GVI includes farms, gardens, youth leadership programming, and educational workshops that nurture the grassroots movement for urban growers across the city.

Its network includes community gardens, school gardens, Reservoir Community Farm, and the Youth Leadership Program. Each program plays an important part in benefiting Bridgeport’s children and families. GVI supports its community by providing hands-on workshops, educational field trips, virtual lessons, and youth employment, as well as crop plans, seeds and seedlings, soil, garden support and repair, a seasonal farmer’s market, and more.

Green Bronx Machine builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and workforce development.

Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, its school-based model uses urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators. This work grows healthy students and healthy schools that can transform struggling, fragmented neighborhoods into inclusive, thriving communities.

Green Bronx Machine envisions growing healthy communities where those who are “apart from” will become “part of.” It focuses on solutions that benefit 100% of society to create a world where people do not have to leave their community to live in, learn from, or earn in a better one.

Through strong advocacy and partnerships, FRAC helps to eradicate poverty-related hunger and undernutrition in the United States. As one pillar of its work, FRAC leads efforts to end childhood hunger. The organization works with key groups in every state to educate the public, promote legislation and policy change, and strengthen coalitions to ensure children don’t go hungry in this country.

FRAC’s efforts to end hunger in America include the research it conducts and documents, serving as a watchdog of programs and promoting effective solutions to combat the struggles it sees. As part of its support, FRAC seeks stronger policies to address hunger and its root causes.

In addition, FRAC provides coordination, training, and additional support for anti-hunger and anti-poverty issues through a network of programs and like-minded advocates.

The Chef Ann Foundation wants all children to have equal access to healthy school meals to allow them to meet their true potential in the classroom.

From one chef’s vision of incorporating fresher, more nutritious food for children in schools, to a national organization offering education and programming to increase the awareness surrounding children’s nutritional issues, CAF is recognized as a leader in self-operated, cook-from-scratch school food operations.

Through programs and education like Get Schools Cooking, Salad Bars to Schools, The Lunch Box, Project Produce, and School Food Institute, CAF has successfully impacted over 3 million children in school districts across the country.

FoodCorps helps provide kids with nourishing meals, food education, and culturally affirming experiences with food, and advocates for policies that promote every kid’s health and well-being. The organization collaborates with partners inside and outside the school system—including school nutrition leaders, nonprofit organizations, community groups, and government officials—to support every student’s health, education, and sense of belonging.

This work has shown changes in students’ behavior, attitudes towards eating and trying foods, and the amount of nourishing food offered in schools. In fact, students in FoodCorps schools with more hands-on learning activities are eating up to three times the amount of fruits and vegetables as students who receive less of that hands-on learning.