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Events & Funding Opportunities​

General Farm to School Information
​ISBE wants to hear from you! Please take a few minutes of your time to inform ISBE about your interest in Farm to School.

Farm to Early Care

Food Safety
​Food safety must be a top priority when purchasing and serving local foods to Illinois children. When it comes to knowing the requirements, there can be federal requirements, state requirements, county requirements and your own local requirements, which can seem overwhelming. Due to the possibility of county and local requirements varying across the state, that presents challenges for providing a one size fits all answer. Therefore, in order to best assist SFAs, below you will find some helpful resources and we always suggest that your first call be to your local county health department​.​

Procurement
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For Producers (Farmers, Ranchers, Processors, and Distributors
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  • Are you a farmer, rancher, producer, distributor, processor that minimally processes local foods, food hub or other entity that would be interested in selling local foods to schools?

    Please view our Informational Flyer and click on the link or links that best describe your business to be added to our KNOWN lists. These are not approved or recommended lists, they are just known lists to assist schools with sourcing local foods. Schools will still need to follow procurement/purchasing rules, will need to verify with each business if they meet their food safety requirements and their individual needs. ​ 

Local Food for Schools (LFS)
​Local Foods for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS)

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is excited to announce that Illinois will be participating in the USDA's Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS). This new program will provide 7.3 million dollars to ISBE, that will be distributed to eligible schools to purchase local unprocessed and minimally processed food. ISBE plans to issue non-competitive sub-awards of these funds to School Food Authorities (SFAs) that participate in the National School Lunch and/or School Breakfast Program for use during next school year (2023-2024).

The goal of LFS is to increase purchases of domestic, locally grown foods from local producers, small businesses, and socially disadvantaged farmers/producers for distribution to schools in order to build a more resilient local food chain by expanding and strengthening local and regional markets.

ISBE is currently working on guidance and resources and plans to share more information on this funding opportunity, how it will work and how to apply in the coming months.

Websites/Links
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Scratch Cooking

School Gardens
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Success Stories

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Contact Information