Our Response to COVID-19 – Wellness in the Schools

Taking care of our team.

This is paramount. We are sharing resources for both emotional and physical well being, and we are doing our best to provide support to team members near and far. We have already gathered together over Zoom for a virtual yoga class provided by our partner Pam Reece – giving us all a chance to stop, and breathe together.

We are monitoring CDC guidelines, and following the leads of our districts to determine how and when our teams can support our communities by bringing trained staff members to support school sites.

Bridging connections for our partners (chefs, fitness partners, food vendors) to help support our families.

After 15 years on the ground we have made strong connections with local partners, primarily in NYC. We are fielding calls from partners with offers to help and with expressions of need. We are finding that we can play a critical role in forging these connections to help families. See resources below.

One small example of this “networking” is working with Red Rabbit to help get their meals to over 1,000 Chop’t Salad employees’ families who have been furloughed due to restaurants closing.

Providing online resources for interested schools.

We are working with the online sports app Famer. They are providing us with a series of fitness drills for our school communities for the next two weeks. During these two weeks, we will film videos with our team to roll out more content for kids to do at home.

Continuing to develop ScratchWorks

We will continue to develop ScratchWorks to help support school districts to provide freshly prepared meals to their communities. This cooperative effort with foundation partners, namely Chef Ann Foundation, Life Time Foundation, and Whole Kids Foundation, and under the leadership of our district partners: Boulder, CO / Arlington, VA / Austin, TX / Minneapolis, MN / NYC, NY / Washington, DC is all the more important today. In these uncertain times, we have to move in the moment with short-term activations, while also staying focused on our long-term goal to provide healthy school environments for vulnerable children across this country. The word healthy certainly takes on more meaning today, and health and wellness have become ever more important. Our country is at an even greater risk than others during this pandemic due to our high rates of obesity and diabetes. Essentially, we are facing a pandemic at a time when we are already sick. COVID-19 has brought many things to light, among them, that we need to double down on the extraordinary collective work of school districts around the country.