Community partnerships have long been critical to helping sponsors expand access to summer and afterschool meals. This is truer than ever during COVID-19 response. Learn how three non-profit sponsors from across the country built and strengthened relationships with schools, city leaders, and more to ensure that kids get the nutritious meals they need.

With the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), school nutrition staff can strategically group schools together to increase revenue, maximize the number of schools participating in CEP, or both! But with so many possible combinations for grouping, it can be difficult to know which scenario is the "best." That's where Meals Count (https://www.mealscount.com/) comes in.

While the pandemic has wrought crisis after crisis, one bright spot has been kids' and teens' universal access to school meals, and the school nutrition heroes behind those meals. As many districts are wondering how to preserve this important benefit for students as they head back to school, join us to learn more about the Community Eligibility Provision and how it might fit into your back-to-school plans! Whether you are new to CEP or have experience with the provision, all are welcome to join.

This interactive workshop features school nutrition staff and community partners who work together to create inclusive school meals programs, specifically assessing and removing barriers students may face in accessing meals programs. The speakers provide insight into actionable items that school nutrition departments may implement in their own communities.

Share Our Strength, the Food Research & Action Center, Feeding America and YMCA of the USA review details of USDA's extension of Child Nutrition flexibilities affecting the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) and National School Lunch Program Seamless Summer Option (SSO). This webinar highlights key aspects of the waiver extensions and ways that organizations have utilized the waivers to-date.

Learn about how school nutrition directors across the county have adapted their meal programs during COVID-19, while ensuring meal quality remains a top priority. We heard about how school nutrition directors have applied creativity to their menus to keep them fresh, how they’ve utilized scratch and semi-scratch cooking for bulk meals, and how to master meal quality no matter the size of the district during COVID-19.

Join No Kid Hungry as we continue to highlight solutions, challenges and lingering questions around the Covid-19 response. For this session, we featured what immigrant-inclusive policies and strategies are available at the federal and state level along with what policy-makers can do to promote equitable and immigrant-inclusive policies such as Pandemic EBT. Our speakers highlighted the effectiveness of these policies in responding to the pandemic-triggered economic hardships among immigrant children and families.

Join No Kid Hungry as we continue to highlight solutions, challenges and lingering questions around Covid-19 response and back-to-school. For this session of our back-to-school series, we featured programming and lessons learned from Tribal communities. School food service and community leaders shared how they have navigated these challenging times and how they are implementing meal service for students during COVID-19. Our speakers highlighted unique benefits and challenges that tribal communities face from a cultural and governmental perspective.