Chef Ann Foundation: Get Schools Cooking Grant

Chef Ann Foundation: Get Schools Cooking Grant

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Chef Ann Foundation
Amount: Unspecified amount in in-kind support
Last Updated: August 27, 2025

Summary

The Chef Ann Foundation's Get Schools Cooking program empowers K-12 school districts to shift from heat-and-serve meals to scratch cooking, ensuring students receive fresher and healthier food. By providing tailored technical support and comprehensive assessments, the foundation helps districts create strategic plans to enhance their meal programs over three years. With a vision of equal access to nutritious food for all children, the initiative also includes system improvement grants to facilitate successful implementation.

Overview

Chef Ann Foundation Our Mission Ensure that school food professionals have the resources, funding and support they need to provide fresh, healthy, delicious, cook from scratch meals that support the health of children and our planet. Our Vision All children have equal access to fresh, healthy, delicious food providing them the foundation to thrive and meet their true potential. Get Schools Cooking Our Get Schools Cooking program helps school districts transition from a heat-and-serve to a scratch cooking operational model so they can serve students fresher, healthier, and more appetizing meals. Through our most hands-on initiative, Get Schools Cooking, we meet K-12 districts where they are so they can gradually transition from serving students primarily highly processed heat-and-serve meals to serving them fresh, healthy, delicious meals made from scratch. After conducting a comprehensive assessment of a district’s menu, financial position, facilities infrastructure, staffing, and marketing efforts, we help districts create a strategic plan and over the course of three years take actionable steps toward increasing their scratch cooking capacity. We also provide system improvement grants to help districts implement our recommendations. Award Information GSC Offers Selected Districts: Individualized technical support to assist in sustainably moving from a highly processed to cook from scratch operation.Assessment of barriers and identification of actions in five key areas of school food service: Food, Finance, Facilities, Human Resources, and Marketing.Support for districts in developing action plans that create a structured framework to achieve their strategic objectives.System improvement grants that support the implementation of recommended actions and next steps.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. Open to: K-12 school districts that run a self-operated meal program and participate in the National School Lunch Program. Districts must also demonstrate support from district leadership and be committed to working towards a scratch-cook meal program.