From its launch in 2007, the Orfalea Fund School Food Initiative brought a business-minded, entrepreneurial approach to school food reform.
Despite a growing understanding of the link between good nutrition and the ability to learn, many school districts feel bound by budgets and bureaucracy to stick with packaged, processed, heat-and-serve food. By changing the underlying structural premise from one of expediency to one of health and wellness, we and our partner organizations shifted not merely practices, but the attitudes behind them.
The Orfalea Fund and our partners in Santa Barbara County have shown that healthy, delicious, scratch-cooked food can be procured and prepared on time and on budget.
