A critical social barrier to quality education and health is adequate nutrition and overall food security. School lunch programs may have gone in and out of favor over the years, but they are incredibly effective at increasing food security for school-aged children. With growing awareness of the importance of social care in overall health, it’s time to recognize school lunch programs as essential to a healthy curriculum.

Challenges with Food Assistance for School-Aged Children

Are school lunches still free? While funding for school lunch programs was extended through the 2022-2023 school year through the Keep Kids Fed Act, not all students are allowed access to school meals free of charge.

Families that do not already receive SNAP benefits must apply through their school to determine if their household is eligible for free or reduced-price school meals. To be eligible, family income must fall well below the poverty line. This leaves a significant number of families who are not “poor” enough to qualify, but not “well-off” enough to feel food secure and provide their children with adequate food while at school.

For many families already facing other difficult societal changes such as the rising costs of groceries and fuel, the return to work, and the end of other Federal support programs, this gap represents another significant burden. The application and enrollment process is also time-consuming and challenging. Typically, families need the support of a busy school staff member to help with the submission of their application.

Programs such as the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP) can help high-poverty schools and districts offer school meals at no cost to enrolled students without family applications. But such support is not available to every school, district or family in need.

Schools are also challenged by the same supply chain obstacles and rising cost issues that almost every organization faces today. When traditional food supplies are not available, schools must still provide meals that meet USDA meal requirements or face fines, even though substitutions are often more costly.

A New Call to Meet Health and Social Needs through School Lunch Programs

Why are universal school lunch programs so important?

Access to well-balanced, nutritious meals has a direct impact on a child’s ability to focus in school. In addition to sustenance, school lunch programs provide reliability and consistency in a child’s life, especially when they come from insecure, challenging or disadvantaged circumstances. When school meals are available to all, the stigma associated with receiving food assistance is reduced.

Kids and their families have so much to worry about these days, food shouldn’t be one of them.

In recognition of this reality, the Biden Administration hosted the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health on September 28.

This is the first time such a program has been held since 1969. The goal is to address challenges in the nation’s food system that are leading to food insecurity, chronic hunger, nutrition and health inequities, and the rise of diet-related chronic disease. Such challenges cost the nation hundreds of billions of dollars every year in preventable health care spending.

The program will focus on five pillars with concrete steps to meet the associated barriers:

• Improving food access and affordability
• Integrating nutrition and health
• Empowering all consumers with access to healthy choices
• Supporting physical activity for all
• Enhancing nutrition and food security research

Hopefully, the event inspires new energy, community partnerships and funding for addressing food insecurity in school children.

SDoH Tools Can Connect School Children and Families to Support

School lunch programs can play a central role in social care that ultimately reduces healthcare spending and improves population health. When students are healthier, supported and food secure, they are also more likely to be attentive and more engaged in the classroom. Teachers, administrators, families, communities and – most importantly – students all win.

But school lunch programs also highlight the opportunity that schools represent to make other health and social care services more accessible. These include needs around mental health, substance use disorders, housing insecurity and transportation.

By integrating schools within broader community health and social care networks, social service providers and organizations can help children thrive at school and at home, while offering crucial support to families and school staff.

Learn more on how to increase your impact. Download our flyer to learn how joining a network of coordinated care can help your organization connect students and their families to the care they need.

Download the Flyer

The post Back to School: Keeping Kids Fed appeared first on uniteus.com.

Tell us about your organization.

Giving Kitchen (GK) is a nonprofit organization that provides emergency assistance to food service workers through financial support and a network of community resources.

Giving Kitchen grew out of a response to the devastating, stage-four cancer diagnosis of Chef Ryan Hidinger in December 2012. The response to Ryan’s diagnosis — initially from friends within the restaurant industry, and then quickly from an ever-expanding community across Atlanta – was truly heroic: an outpouring of love and financial support to help with his expenses not covered by insurance.

The community’s overwhelming response to the Hidingers’ crisis set the intent, beliefs, and values for Giving Kitchen, which was officially founded in 2013.

Today, food service workers from restaurants, catering companies, concessions stands, cafeterias, food trucks, and tap rooms anywhere in the United States are eligible for direct support from Giving Kitchen, be that with financial assistance, referrals through Stability Network, or both.

What difficulties has your organization faced along the way?

Giving Kitchen is doing something for food service workers that hasn’t been done on this scale before. Building something new comes with challenges! How do we standardize a process for who and how we serve, in a way that is equitable, impactful, and scalable? How do we meet an industry-wide crisis like COVID-19 without throwing all our own guidelines out the window? How can we grow and change to meet our community where they are? These are questions we ask ourselves every day.

When COVID-19 prompted the shutdown of all food service in March 2020, GK Executive Director Bryan Schroeder made the difficult decision to maintain the qualifying crises for financial assistance — meaning that GK would not suddenly start paying unemployment to food service workers laid off due to the pandemic. “It just felt like it would have been a disaster for us,” he said. “That’s not our core mission. It wouldn’t be fair to the guy who broke his leg just before the pandemic.” To meet the demand of food service workers suddenly in need of resources, GK set up a webpage that included information on food banks, community initiatives, and how to obtain federal unemployment support; it was essentially a pandemic-specific Stability Network. The webpage received hundreds of thousands of hits.

During this time, Stability Network reevaluated standard operating procedures. Case managers began filtering inquiries and allowing clients to opt-in for one-on-one case management rather than having case management be the default, since there were so many clients and many requests were for a simple referral that had been shared hundreds of times before. There’s a saying in the restaurant industry: “work smarter, not harder.” Stability Network worked smarter so they could work harder to meet an exponential increase in inquiries; these systematic improvements helped set the stage for a partnership with Unite Us.

What are your thoughts on the state of food security in America?

Food insecurity has been a huge challenge for the food service industry in the U.S., especially since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Food banks, shelters, and private citizens stepped up in a big way to feed our communities when entire industries found themselves out of work indefinitely. But even with that onslaught of compassion and effort, what remained clear was that millions of people were living paycheck to paycheck and when that next paycheck disappeared, so did their access to basic necessities.

Why did you choose to partner with Unite Us?

Our partnership widens the network of resources for food service workers and allows GK case managers to monitor the value and efficacy of Stability Network partnerships for our clients.

“Our partnership with Unite Us has expanded our library of resources significantly, especially in rural areas. With this greater reach, we are better poised to support food-service workers regionally and nationally,” said Senior Stability Network Manager Kaitlynn Mockett.

What do you think has been Giving Kitchen’s most successful initiative?

We quantify success not in dollars given but in overall impact: preventing homelessness, supporting recovery from substance misuse, keeping a family’s utilities connected, and a million other ways to help food service workers feel safe and supported. Perhaps our most successful initiative is that we’ve continued to grow and serve more and more food service workers. The farther we expand and the more food service workers we serve, the more word gets out that Giving Kitchen is here to help food service workers. Our expansion has legitimized our work by proving to our communities that Giving Kitchen is here to help and here to stay.

How does collaborating with community-based organizations play a role in Giving Kitchen’s work?

Stability Network is, at its core, a collaboration with other community-based organizations. What separates GK’s Stability Network from other referral programs is the case management team. Stability Network case managers work closely with clients to find resources that fit their specific needs, and often provide direct referrals that give clients access to services that aren’t otherwise available or may be significantly more expensive without a referral from GK. Relationships with other organizations and independent providers are stewarded by case managers, whose personal mission is to make connections that improve the strength and resilience of our food service community.

What’s next for Giving Kitchen?

Our goal is to serve more and more food service workers who need us. From a recent study, we know that there are over a million food service businesses in the U.S. which collectively employ nearly 16 million people, and food service workers in the U.S. earn an average salary of $20,303 per year ($9.76 per hour). Of GK financial assistance recipients surveyed, 76% say that without help from Giving Kitchen, they would have received an eviction notice, 86% report aid from GK prevented them from incurring a late bill on a utility, and 70% say that GK prevented them from having to skip meals to save money. All of this tells us what we’ve known for years: food service workers, on average, do not have a financial safety net or a network of community resources to keep them afloat in an emergency. We want every food service worker in the U.S. to have a safety net — whether it be Giving Kitchen or another community-based organization — so a single crisis doesn’t compromise their entire livelihood.

For more information about Giving Kitchen, follow @givingkitchen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; visit givingkitchen.org; or visit Giving Kitchen’s Press Room.

Interested in learning more about how community-based organizations are addressing social determinants of health or how to bring Unite Us to your community?

Get in Touch

The post How Giving Kitchen is Helping Food Service Workers Thrive appeared first on uniteus.com.

During the month of March, we are focusing on building healthier communities by bridging the gap in access to healthy food.

Over the past two years, our team has witnessed food assistance organizations across the country pivot creatively in response to the rapidly increasing needs of our community members. Feeding America estimates that in 2020, one in eight Americans were food insecure—over 38 million people. Many people experiencing food insecurity are also facing a variety of other challenges beyond the need for food. Inevitably, every community-based organization has experienced first-hand how food insecurity is often accompanied by other social needs, such as the need for adequate housing or employment.

The post Keep Us Fed: How Nonprofits Are Bridging the Gap in Food Access Through Unite Us appeared first on uniteus.com.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the pervasive issue of food insecurity in communities across the country. While food assistance providers and advocates were aware of this crisis well before the pandemic, many individuals were shocked at images in the news of long lines at food distribution centers and even our military families struggling to put food on their tables.

At Unite Us, we are intimately familiar with the issue of food insecurity. We actively recruit team members who have experience working for food banks, food pantries, and similar organizations that work to nourish their neighbors. We empathize with the added stress the pandemic put on such organizations, as they were forced to shift service delivery models while also watching the need increase within communities. From March 2020 to May 2021, Unite Us witnessed the total number of unique service episodes related to food grow by 928%. For reference, benefits navigation, a similarly sought-after resource, only grew by 310% since March 2020. Food assistance has remained one of the most requested service types across our networks.

Even with all the change and unpredictability brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, one thing has remained constant: individuals and families are increasingly in need of food assistance. Often, one or multiple events have led them to that need, such as being laid off from their job, or being forced to decrease working hours to care for a child when schools closed. Families have been forced to make tough choices. Organizations providing food assistance across our networks have been at the tip of the spear, frequently making the difference in whether a family can make ends meet that month.

Unite Us’ aim is to address the root causes that can lead to an individual or family needing access to food assistance, and to help connect those in need to additional resources.

Connecting Individuals to Food Assistance

Since the first Unite Us network was established, food assistance providers have played an important role as network partners. Some organizations, such as the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia and the Eastern Shore, receive electronic referrals to assist individuals with applications for federal nutrition assistance programs. Others, like All Faiths Food Bank in Florida, use the platform to receive HIPAA-compliant referrals from healthcare partners that identify food insecurity through pediatric screenings.

Glenn Wise, programs director at MANNA FoodBank in Western North Carolina, explained how working with Unite Us transformed the way his staff accepted referrals from healthcare providers. Unite Us, Wise explained, enabled his team, once bogged down by a time-intensive and complex system, to “save so many steps in the process.”

“Before Unite Us, we were entering information for each client into an Excel spreadsheet, but now that loop is completed within the platform,” he said.

COVID-19 restrictions meant many organizations had to shift their distribution models. Requests for home-delivered food assistance increased, especially in those instances where an individual was either homebound or self-isolating due to underlying health conditions, a positive COVID-19 diagnosis, or a potential exposure. Throughout the pandemic, our Unite Us team members worked alongside many of these organizations to update their program offerings.

Referring Out for Root Causes

Many individuals and families who had never accessed support in the past found themselves contacting local food assistance providers during the pandemic. For most people, food banks and food pantries are the initial point of contact in reaching out for help, which provides a tremendous opportunity for these organizations to assist them in making connections to other community resources that target the root causes of their food insecurity.

In communities across the country, food assistance providers are utilizing the Unite Us Platform to send electronic referrals on behalf of individuals to other organizations in the community, such as those providing housing assistance, employment, or legal services. For example, the organization Feeding Tampa Bay has been serving as a coordination center within its community to help accurately route referrals to other providers. Referral Data tracked through the Unite Us Platform can also be used to identify coverage gaps and prompt connections between organizations in the community that may benefit from a strategic partnership.

Looking Ahead

We recognize that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will linger long after the virus is no longer a threat. Resources such as food assistance will remain in great demand. The team at Unite Us is working hard to innovate new ways to help the organizations on the front lines providing services to those in need. With the only end-to-end social care solution — from predicting needs within a community, to enrollment and service delivery, to sustainable community investment — we are excited to collaborate on what provides value to your organization, those you serve, and your community. As social workers, public health professionals, and “foodbankers” at heart, we are passionate about the role we play and are honored to be partners with you in this work.

Request a Demo

The post Meeting Needs Beyond Food Security appeared first on uniteus.com.