Trending this week:  USDA adds $1.3 billion in commodity funding for schools

This week on Food Management USDA adds $1.3 billion in commodity funding for schools ranked as the weeks to story. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack has announced that the Biden-Harris Administration is providing nearly $1.3 billion to states and territories to purchase domestic foods to be distributed to schools, bringing the total amount of additional commodity support for school meals to nearly $3.8 billion since December 2021. It is part of a $2.7 billion package designed to support American farmers, students who participate in school meal programs, and emergency food operations.

In other news, an intern participating in Chartwells Higher Education’s Student Success program helped engineering a sustainability-focused collaboration between the contract feeder and the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus.

Catherine Thompson was a Chartwells intern when she joined the board of Seedlings, a national social network of campus groups focused on greener living, during her senior year. She saw an opportunity for the two organizations to combine forces to spread the sustainability message through campus dining; the result was an event this past spring designed to raise students’ awareness about the carbon impact of their meal choices.

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