It’s been a crazy past couple of weeks. It’s hard to imagine that only two months ago Coronavirus was a headline from halfway across the world for most of us in New England. Now, schools are remote learning, businesses are closed down, and everyone is adjusting to a new way of life. These changes deeply impacted Food Connects as we adjusted our operations and shifted our focus to the community response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Food Hub

Since mid-March, Food Connects closed its office to everyone except essential employees. Who’s an essential employee at Food Connects? Our drivers and operations staff that play a vital role in maintaining the local food supply chain. They continue working under heightened safety protocols to ensure that schools, co-ops, hospitals, and communities continue to have access to local, healthy food. As we adjust to this new way of life, our entire staff is reminded of how vital our work is. 

Thanks to our already strong safety protocols, connections with producers and consumers, and our dedicated Food Hub team, operations continue throughout this period of transition relatively unimpeded. Old programs, like community-based buying clubs, gained traction once again as shoppers re-discover the importance of local, source-identified food. 

Farm to School

The Farm to School team is working remotely during this period as well. Like the Food Hub, Sheila and Conor are utilizing their strong connections with teachers and partner organizations to coordinate a response to the growing nutritional needs of our community. Food Connects’ Communities of Practice continue to deepen the interconnected relationships of anti-hunger champions throughout Windham County, aiding in the quick response and collaboration of schools, food shelves, and other community organizations when schools were mandated to close. 

We took the lead in coordinating between school districts and the Windham Region Hunger Council. In this role, Food Connects has ensured the clear flow of information and resources between schools and partner organizations, the VT Foodbank, and area food shelves. We can see these channels of communication in action, quickly fulfilling the volunteer needs of schools as they arise. With the Hunger Council, we also maintain an updated database of each district's school meal program during the school closure and concisely disseminate that information county-wide via local news media.

Working directly with schools, we continue to support Food Service Directors by aiding in the spread of information, finding answers to rules and regulations, and coordinating volunteers for their programs. As teachers begin to settle into their new routines, we will be another layer of support for them by sharing resources and facilitating online Communities of Practice and Farm to School committee meetings. This is especially important as we collectively navigate the next stage of questions—how do we engage students in farm to school while teaching remotely, what will the school’s garden program look like for next year, how do we maintain the progress we’ve made this school year?

Everyone at Food Connects is working to strike a balance between meeting our community’s immediate needs and not losing sight of the future. School gardens, nutrition education, and local foods are all mentally and physically nourishing activities that will be in high demand once this is all over. We’re excited to help our partners and schools be prepared for when that time comes.