A Half-million MI School Kids Eating Local This Semester

Stuff We Love

By Lynda Wheatley | Oct. 2, 2021

It was only about a decade ago that northern Michigan’s Diane Conners began nurturing a seed of an idea — to bring fruits and veggies from local farms to local schools — but oh, what a decade can do.

One coffee break (with Don Coe, at the time Black Star Farms’ managing partner and part of the state’s agriculture commission), several extra-long BATA bus rides (with early funding champion and Cherry Republic founder Bob Sutherland), and many large leaps up the legislative ladder, and the now formalized 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids and Farm Program has hit its best-funded year yet.

Last week, the Michigan Department of Education announced the 229 recipients of the initial round of grants that would get part of the $5 million in School Aid funding set aside for the program for this school year (more than double last school year’s $2 million).

In this first round of grants alone, the program will serve a total enrollment of nearly 554,000 children in K-12 schools, early childhood education, and after-school settings across the state, more than half of whom are eligible for free or reduced lunch.

The $5-million funding is a testament to the central strategic value of 10 Cents a Meal, says Diane Conners, senior policy specialist at Groundwork Center for Resilient Communities. “Healthy, locally grown foods help build the minds and bodies of our children,” she says, “while the purchases support family farms and help to build the infrastructure of our local food supply.” 

What’s more, it works: According to the 2020-2021 10 Cents a Meal Evaluation Results from the MSU Center for Regional Food Systems, nearly 64 percent of all grantees (91 of 143) have reported that 10 Cents grants allowed them to try new products in their food service program that they would not have otherwise tried. The top ten new Michigan-grown foods reported by food service directors who utilize the grant included, in order: apples, asparagus, blueberries, dry beans/legumes, cherries, carrots, potatoes, lettuce, summer squash, and root vegetables.