USDA Grants $7.4M to Maine Organizations to Fight Child Hunger & Increase Local Food Access

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has awarded seven organizations in Maine $7.4 million through the nonprofit Full Plates, Full Potential School Food System Innovation Grants to help schools overcome the barriers to purchasing Maine-based foods for their school meal programs and to help combat child hunger in Maine. The grant money will also be used to create culturally appropriate meals as part of Maine's School Meals for All Policy.

The seven organizations awarded the grants and the projects the grants will be used for are:

1) Auburn Public Schools in Auburn, Maine was awarded a grant of $623,970

Auburn Public Schools seeks to develop a collaborative, regional, school food processing hub located within the combined school districts of Auburn, Lewiston, and Lisbon. This project will improve the quality of school meals in the region through culinary training opportunities, build capacity for local food processing and storage, and strengthen the school food marketplace for local growers and producers. In addition, this project will develop a streamlined regional ordering system to increase local food procurement and build upon existing partnerships with regional local farmers and producers. This project will engage students in multiple ways and through different partners.

2) Five Pillars Butchery in Unity, Maine was awarded a grant of $1,499,999

Five Pillars Butchery seeks to establish a halal meal program for K–12 students to incorporate locally produced vegetables and locally raised halal meat products into cultural meals, starting with the Auburn and Waterville school districts. This innovative project will address barriers to participation in Maine’s School Meals for All policy for Muslim students statewide while also addressing the needs and challenges faced by under-resourced, understaffed, and underequipped school kitchens. This project includes strong emerging partnerships with local food growers, producers, processors, distributors, and SFAs. Students will be engaged through taste testing as products are developed.

3) Maine Coast Fishermen's Association in Brunswick, Maine was awarded a grant of $608,606

The Maine Coast Fishermen’s Association has been providing frozen local fish fillets to Maine K–12 schools at no cost through the Fishermen Feeding Mainers (FFM) program, and through that process, they have built relationships with Maine school food authorities and developed an understanding of the barriers and challenges K–12 schools face in sourcing and serving local seafood. This project will build upon FFM by expanding to more schools through the development of sustainable distribution channels, culinary skill building, and awareness-raising. It also aims to develop local, value-added seafood products that would increase school capacity and the ability to serve local fish. Students will be engaged through the Sea to School curriculum and taste tests.

4) Maine Food Strategy/Maine Food Convergence in Lewiston, Maine was awarded a grant of $1,412,962

The Maine Food Strategy and Maine Food Convergence together seek to develop The Local Food Switchboard to serve as a virtual central hub for coordinating logistics and services within Maine's local food system intended for school usage. The Switchboard will function as a central hub with an “operator” to connect and coordinate the local food system with food purchasing institutions, including K–12 schools, in Maine. This project responds to the significant challenges and gaps in connecting, communicating, and coordinating local food system infrastructure, businesses, and food-buying institutions that hamper local food procurement, processing, storage, distribution, and consumption. Project partners represent local food system experts from across Maine’s food system, including school food authorities, growers and producers, processors, distributors, and other food system stakeholders.

5) Peak Season in Freedom, Maine was awarded a grant of $1,490,432

This project seeks to make a greater variety of Maine-based products available to schools through Peak Season’s centralized online ordering system by sourcing from additional Maine growers, producers, and processors and expanding their distribution channels to reach more K–12 schools. This project will fill significant gaps in Maine’s K–12 food supply chain by addressing the need for aggregation of bulk and varied local products, providing a streamlined ordering system to meet school nutrition needs and ordering practices, growing the market for small local growers and producers to sell to schools and other large food buying institutions, and increasing storage and distribution capacity to more parts of the state.

6) RSU/MSAD 54 in Skowhegan, Maine was awarded a grant of $225,887

This project is an innovative collaboration between local school districts, Somerset Public Health, and the Somerset County Jail to increase local food being served in Somerset County K–12 schools. This project builds upon a partnership that began in 2019 to build raised beds at the Somerset County Jail to grow fruits and vegetable seeds planted by students at a local elementary school. This project responds to the challenges faced by schools in sourcing local food in this region of the state, as well as the high price point for local produce. The collaboration between the schools and jail will ensure that schools are able to plan their menus ahead and receive the products and quantities they are counting on for their school menus. This project will support inmates in processing the produce through peeling, chopping, and freezing and will store the minimally processed produce for schools, helping to boost the schools’ capacity to provide products throughout the school year outside of the growing season. This project aims to grow and scale to incorporate more schools in Somerset County and has the potential to be replicated in other counties as there are local schools, public health districts, and county jails across the state.

7) The Good Crust in Canaan, Maine was awarded a grant of $1,499,849

The Good Crust is a collaborative pilot project seeking to use convenient hand-held breakfast and lunch foods made with Maine-grown ingredients to inspire processing innovations, and supplier collaborations, advance local grain value-added processing, and transform school nutrition menus back toward local procurement. This project responds to a challenge voiced by Maine school nutrition professionals who lack the capacity for daily scratch cooking. It also replaces existing popular but highly processed school menu items with healthier, minimally processed options made with local ingredients. This project will incorporate student voice and engagement through ongoing taste testing to gather student feedback, as well as the inclusion of educational and curriculum opportunities for students to learn where their food comes from.

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