Hands-On Transformation: How School Food Leaders Across the Country Are Collaborating for Change

Our Fellows are dedicated to supporting their students by replacing ultraprocessed foods on their menus with wholesome, scratch-cooked meals. Since launching the Fellowship in 2023,  we’ve seen that one of the most powerful ways to equip Fellows with the knowledge, skills, and support needed to make this change possible is through immersive peer-to-peer networking and hands-on learning.  

Each year, the Fellows have the chance to see success in action by visiting school districts that are further along the scratch-cooking continuum than their home districts. These district host sites are nationally recognized leaders in K-12 scratch cooking, with at least 30% of their meals made from scratch. They vary in size, location, production models, and areas of specialized expertise – ranging from financial management and marketing to recipe development and student engagement.

For the average school food professional, traveling to other districts can be a significant challenge due to time and budget restrictions, particularly for those working in rural communities where neighboring districts may be hours away. Our Fellowship removes many of these barriers by arranging and covering the cost of district site visits, making these learning opportunities accessible to all Fellows.

This April, each 2026 Fellow participated in their first visit to one of the following districts: 

What does a site visit look like? 

Through a customized matching process, groups of three to five Fellows are paired with a host site that showcases work tied to Fellows’ individual learning goals and their district's priorities. Fellows may visit districts in their own region to build stronger local relationships, or travel to an entirely different part of the country they typically wouldn’t have the opportunity to visit to experience a new approach to scratch cooking.

Over three days, Fellows immerse themselves in facility tours, culinary demonstrations, discussions of scratch-cooking challenges and solutions, and hands-on practice with new recipes, techniques, and equipment. 

At Napa Valley Unified School District, Fellows Gloria, Mary, Raecine, and Sydney built their confidence in cooking with raw proteins. During their site visit, they not only worked alongside the district’s school food professionals to prepare dishes like chicken pozole and beefy cheesy mac, but they also learned how the district sources local meats for recipes like these. As part of their in-person training, the Fellows had a firsthand look at how local meat is processed during a tour of Sonoma County Meat Co.

Meanwhile, at Alexandria City Public Schools, Fellows Dawn, John, Ociel, and Tim learned how the district’s school food team aligns menu quality, student voice, and operational systems. The Fellows visited a state-of-the-art high school cafeteria, learned to cook the Ethiopian dish misir wat with injera from scratch, helped the district team lead a student taste test, and toured the local branch of Area 2 Farms, a certified organic farm in Arlington that provides microgreens to the district and hosts student field trips.

For many Fellows, the informal conversations and real-time problem-solving that happen during their visit are some of the most valuable parts of the experience. The unique opportunity to ask candid questions and learn from fellow school food leaders who are navigating many of the same challenges as them leads to creative solutions and strong bonds, both among Fellows and between them and the teams at their host districts. 

Going deeper: training at the Culinary Center for Child Nutrition  

Site visits aren’t the only opportunity that Fellows have to get together for hands-on learning. In June, our 2026 cohort traveled to the Culinary Institute of Child Nutrition (CICN) in Oxford, MI, for three days of training focused on building skills, confidence, and excitement around scratch cooking. 

Additionally, Fellows put their skills to the test by cooking a variety of culturally relevant and plant-forward dishes, including:

Fellows headed home equipped with comprehensive training guides and standardized recipes, giving them the tools needed to bring what they learned back to their teams and replicate the culinary curriculum within their own districts.

What’s cooking for the rest of this year’s Fellowship?

As we approach back-to-school season, our Fellows are eager to put more of their training into action and kick the new school year off with stronger school food programs and more fresh, scratch-cooked meals. For many, this is reflected in their capstone project, a self-directed project each Fellow takes on to advance scratch-cooking in their district, supported by a $5,000 stipend and mentorship from a Chef Ann Foundation school food operations advisor. Later this fall, each Fellow will also travel to an additional host district for a second site visit to continue their learning and collaboration. 

Interested in applying to join our next cohort of Fellows? 

Apply by Sept 2, 2026! To learn more, visit our Fellowship page and watch our Voices of the Healthy School Food Pathway Fellowship webinar.