Hundreds of food policy experts, activists, and thought leaders gathered at George Washington University earlier this week for the inaugural Food & Agriculture Policy Summit presented by Food Tank, the Global Food Institute, the Culinary Institute of America, and the José Andrés Group. The full-day agenda featured a roll call of impact makers on topics ranging from global agriculture and climate change to the importance of SNAP and School Food programs to the impact of food as medicine. Attendees sat in on conversations with Chef José Andrés, Massachusetts Congressman Jim McGovern, Representative Shontel Brown from Ohio, James Beard Award-Winning Culinary Historian and writer Michael Twitty, farmers, food workers, chefs, and more!
Alongside some of the biggest names in food policy and culinary innovation appeared DC Central Kitchen’s own Shante Bullock, who serves as a Senior Lead for our Healthy School Food program where she trains and manages the culinary service teams at 13 of our public and private schools in Wards 7 & 8. Shante relayed her first-hand perspectives, as a food service worker and a mother of nine, on what it takes to make scratch-cooked, locally sourced school meals that check all the right nutritional boxes, get kids excited to make healthy choices in the cafeteria, and create good jobs in our community. Fittingly, she was joined in her panel on the main stage by Dodo Farms owner Tope Fajingbesi, whose Maryland farm is a valued local sourcing partner of DC Central Kitchen’s Healthy Corners program, which brings fresh fruits and vegetables to small corner stores in parts of DC without supermarkets.
DCCK’s role at this prestigious gathering comes on the heels of working with the Global Food Institute and Andrés’s Longer Tables Fund on the release of an all-new Building Healthy Corners best practice guide—a free online resource that helps turn thought leadership on healthy food accessibility into practical action. The guide stemmed from a nearly year-long collaboration with GWU researchers focused on the most effective strategies for sharing Healthy Corners’ proven model with other communities across the US facing food access challenges.
As our founder Robert Egger famously said, “There are those who can talk, those who can do, and those who can talk about what they do.” Thanks to partners like these, we’re talking about real results and sharing what’s working here in Washington, DC.