2018 Farm to School Grant Program (SLT)

OMB Control No.: 0584-0512

Expiration Date: 03/2019

USDA Farm to School Program Grantee Baseline Report

Welcome

Dear USDA Farm to School Grantee,

Congratulations on receiving a USDA Farm to School Grant Program award. At this early stage of your grant, USDA would like to collect some initial baseline data about your project. This is intended to help us (and you) document your starting point. You will be asked to complete a similar report at the end of the grant period to document changes. Tracking tools are available to help you organize data that will be required on the final report.

This report should take about 20 minutes to complete once you have procurement data on hand regarding the schools and/or school districts currently involved with your project. This report contains three main sections.

• Section one will ask for general information about your project.

• Section two will ask about your project partners and network.

• Section three will ask about your project activities, including questions regarding the a) procurement practices of the schools or school districts currently involved in your project, b) food preparation and serving practices currently taking place, c) farm to school activities of the schools or districts currently involved in your project, and d) policies in place supporting farm to school in the schools or districts currently involved in your project.

For the procurement data in section three, the data you provide should be about the schools and/or school districts currently involved with your project. If you do not know this information, please do your best to gather this information from the appropriate school food service directors or food service management companies.

If you have questions or need assistance completing this report, please contact the USDA Farm to School Program at [email protected]. The deadline for completing this report is [date will be specified by the grant program manager based on the award date].

Sincerely,

The USDA Farm to School Program

Section 1: Project Information

1. Please provide your first and last name.

2. Please provide your email address for follow up if clarification is needed.

3. How many full time paid employee equivalents (FTEs) are currently involved with your USDA Farm to School grant project? (Please provide a numeric answer.)

Section 2: Project Network

USDA is interested in your relationships with other groups or organizations that may be involved with your farm to school project.

4. For the groups and organizations listed in the chart below, please choose the response that best describes their approximate level of involvement in your project. (If the stakeholder group refers to you or your role, please simply check N/A.)

Stakeholder	Lots of support and collaboration	Some support and collaboration	None, but we expect to work with them	None, and we don’t expect to work with them	Not sure or not applicable (N/A)
Farmers and producers
Distributors and aggregators
Processors and manufacturers
Nutrition services management and administrative staff
Kitchen management and kitchen staff
Students
Teachers

District/school administrators (e.g. the superintendent, the school board, or the COO etc.)
PTA/PTO
Parents/caregivers
Local chefs
Local food banks
Local businesses
Tribal organizations
Nonprofit organizations (other than your own if you are a nonprofit)
Cooperative extension professionals
University faculty/staff (non-extension)
Municipal or local government
State Department of Education
State Department of Agriculture
State Department of Health
Faith-based organizations
USDA Food and Nutrition Service
USDA Agricultural Marketing Service
USDA Rural Development
USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service
FoodCorps
AmeriCorps/Vista

5. Which three partners are the most important to reaching your project objectives? Choose three from the list below.

A list of stakeholders from the chart above.

6. Why are these groups the most important partners?

1.

2.

3.

7. Please select all of the ways your farm to school efforts are currently being financially supported. (Please check all that apply.)

• USDA Farm to School grant

• General school/school food service funds

• Other federal grants (e.g. CDC, etc.)

• Local state or private grants

• Other national private grants (e.g. WK Kellogg Foundation)

• Corporate partnerships and donations

• In-kind contributions

• Fundraising

8. Please provide any additional information to clarify how your project is financially supported.

Section 3: Project Activities

This section contains questions regarding a number of activities that are common to many farm to school programs.

Procurement

9. Please choose the option below that best describes how the schools or school districts you are currently working with define local food.

• Same city/county

• Produced within a 50 mile radius

• Produced within a 100 mile radius

• Produced within a 200 mile radius

• Produced within a day’s drive

• Produced within the State

• Produced within the region

• Geographic along with other restrictions

• I don’t know

• Other (please specify)

10. How many total school districts is your project currently working with? (Please provide a numeric answer.)

11. How many total schools is your project currently working with? (Please provide a numeric answer.)

12. Please choose the option that best describes your ability to report on procurement data (e.g. amount and type of local purchasing, numbers and types of suppliers, etc.) from the schools or school districts you are currently working with:

• Our project is not working directly with schools or school districts to support purchasing of local foods for school meals (skip to question 21)

• We cannot provide procurement data for the schools or school districts we are currently working with (continue to question 13 then skip to question 21)

• We can provide procurement data for some schools or school districts we are currently working with (skip to question 14)

• We can provide procurement data for all schools or school districts we are currently working with (skip to question 14)

13. Please tell us why you cannot provide procurement data for the schools or school districts you are currently working with. (Please check all that apply.)

• We have not yet identified the schools or school districts that we are going to work with

• This information is not being systematically tracked by the schools or school districts we are working with

• Other (please specify)

The following questions ask about how much money the schools and/or school districts you are working with spent on all food and local food during the 20XX-20XX [the last full school year prior to receiving your grant award] school year. Please aggregate data from all of the schools and/or districts you are working with for which you can provide procurement data and give your best approximation. Do not include USDA Foods or DoD Fresh purchases.

14. For the 20XX-20XX school year, what were the approximate total food costs of the schools or school districts you are currently working with? (Please round to the nearest dollar.)

15. For the 20XX-20XX school year, approximately how much did the schools or school districts your project is currently working with spend on locally-sourced foods, including fluid milk? (If you are not sure, a rough estimate is perfectly acceptable. Please round to the nearest dollar.)

16. For the 20XX-20XX school year, approximately how much did the schools or school districts your project is currently working with spend on locally-sourced foods not including fluid milk? (If you are not sure, a rough estimate is perfectly acceptable. Please round to the nearest dollar.)

17. For the 20XX-20XX school year, please indicate how many of each of the following sources the schools or school districts your project is currently working with obtained local foods directly from. (Please provide a numeric answer.)

• Direct from individual food producers (i.e. farmers, fishers, ranchers)

• Direct from farmer, rancher or fisher cooperatives

• Direct from farmers markets

• Via a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model

• Direct from food processors and manufacturers

18. For the 20XX-20XX school year, please indicate how many of each of the following intermediary sources the schools or school districts your project is currently working with obtained local foods from. (Please provide a numeric answer.)

• Distributors

• Food buying cooperative

• Food service management companies

• DoD Fresh Program vendors

• USDA Foods

• State Farm to School Program office

• Food hubs

19. Please indicate whether any of the schools or school districts your project is currently working with used local products in any form (fresh, minimally processed, or processed) for any of the following child nutrition programs during the 20XX-20XX school year. (Please check all that apply.)

• Breakfast

• Lunch

• Supper

• Snacks

• Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program

• Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP)

• Summer meals (i.e., meals in the Summer Food Service Program, in Seamless Summer, or in the NSLP under accredited summer school programs)

20. On average, about how frequently did the school or school district meals or snacks your project is currently working with include at least one locally sourced food item from the categories below during the 20XX-20XX school year?

	Daily	A few times per week	Weekly	A few times per month	Monthly	Occasionally	Never
Fruit
Vegetables
Fluid milk
Other Dairy
Meat/poultry
Eggs
Seafood
Plant-based protein items such as beans, seeds, nuts
Grains and flour
Bakery products
Herbs

Food Preparation and Serving

21. Do you or any of your project partners currently provide training to school food service staff to help them purchase, prepare, or serve local foods in school meal programs?

• Yes

• No

• I don’t know

22. For the schools or school districts you are currently working with, approximately what percentage of the food served in school meals is prepared from scratch? (If you are not sure, a rough estimate is perfectly acceptable.)

• 0%

• 1-10%

• 11-25%

• 26-50%

• 51-75%

• 76-100%

• I don’t know

Activities

23. For the schools or school districts that you are currently working with, please indicate which of the following activities occurred during the 20XX-XX [the last full school year prior to receiving your grant award] school year. (Please check all that apply.)

• Serving locally produced foods in the cafeteria

• Serving locally produced foods as a Smart Snack (a la carte, as fundraisers, etc.)

• Serving locally produced foods or providing farm to school activities as part of afterschool programs

• Serving products from school-based gardens or school-based farms in the cafeteria

• Holding taste tests/cooking demonstrations of locally produced foods or products from school-based gardens or school-based farms in the cafeteria, classroom or other school-related setting

• Using Smarter Lunchroom strategies to encourage student selection and consumption of locally produced foods (e.g., product placement, food prompts, creative signage, etc.)

• Using cafeteria food coaches to promote the consumption of local foods (e.g. adults or students in the cafeteria encouraging kids to eat healthy/local foods)

• Using USDA Team Nutrition materials (such as The Great Garden Detective Adventure or Dig In!) as part of taste testing or educational activities

• Conducting edible school gardening or orchard activities as part of a school curriculum or after school program.

• Conducting student field trips to farms or orchards

• Having farmer(s) visit the cafeteria, classroom or other school-related setting

• Promoting local efforts through themed or branded promotions (e.g. Harvest of the Month, Local Day, Taste of Washington, etc.)

• Promoting locally produced foods at school in general (e.g. via cafeteria signs, posters, newsletters, etc.)

• Generating media coverage of local foods being used in schools (e.g. press interviews or other activities that resulted in local coverage)

• Hosting farm to school related community events (e.g. invited parents to lunch, corn shucking contests, etc.)

• Celebrating Farm to School Month

• Integrating farm to school concepts, including school gardening activities, into educational curriculum (math, science, language arts, etc.)

• Providing training to school food service staff on farm to school or school gardens

• Working with local food producers to develop a specific food product using local foods

• Implementing farm to school activities as part of overall school efforts to reduce food waste

• Evaluating changes in student acceptance and food waste as a result of implementing farm to school activities

24. How many school or community gardens is your project currently involved with? (Please provide a numeric answer.)

Policies

25. From the list below, please select which of the following policies are currently in place in the schools or school districts you are currently working with? (Please check all that apply.)

• Wellness policies that support farm to school

• Procurement policies that support the procurement of local foods

• Policies that support fundraising for farm to school activities

• N/A - No policies are in place to support farm to school activities

• I don’t know

• Other (please specify)

Thank you for completing this report.

We greatly appreciate your efforts and look forward to working with you!

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