The Local Alaskan Food for Schools grant will be distributed by sub-grant to all School Food Authorities approved to participate in the National School Lunch Program in Alaska; our goal is to increase purchase of local foods in schools by 50% with an increase of purchases of local food from socially disadvantaged and small businesses by 50%; we anticipate at least 30 unique vendors to provide local foods to schools in Alaska through this grant.
The state agency will provide training to school districts on procurement of local foods, procurement to include socially disadvantaged and small businesses, resources for purchasing/preparing local foods, and overall grant administration of the subgrants including reporting. Ongoing communication will be conducted with school districts through the bimonthly school district zoom roundtable. School districts will apply for the subgrants and provide baseline data for comparison reporting at the end of the grant period. The distribution will be based on SY22 district enrollment rates at 50% of the funds available for the first distribution; second distribution will be based on compliance with grant requirements in the first cycle including timely reporting.