Photo above: It can be
Groundwork’s Farm to Institution Specialist, Cori Fitzpatrick, was recently accepted to a nationwide partnering project called a “Procurement Community of Practice.” It’s focused on the crucial topic of improving how local food for schools moves through the food system, and identifying strategies that do not require large ongoing investments, which is an urgent priority due to ongoing funding and program cuts to youth nutrition education and local food procurement incentive programs.
We asked Cori to take us behind the scenes for this important conversation, explain why it matters, and what she hopes to bring back to the farmers and school administrators in Michigan who rely on good procurement for making local food distribution succeed.—Jeff Smith
Groundwork’s Cori Fitzpatrick and Megan Maddox, from the Michigan Department of Education, were selected as our state’s representatives joining 72 other food system professionals from 36 states (including Alaska and Hawaii) in a two-year program to figure faster, safer, better ways of getting locally grown food to markets.
GW: Cori, please give us an overview of who’s behind this initiative and what it hopes to accomplish.
Cori Fitzpatrick: Sure. Well, first, this project is co-facilitated by NFSN, Cornell Cooperative Extension Harvest New York, and the Michigan State University Center for Regional Food Systems. They put together what is essentially a structured networking opportunity for a limited number of members to join for about two years. My participation goes from March 2026 through December 2027. They selected 74 members from across the nation, 36 states are represented. From Michigan they selected me and Megan Maddox, from the Michigan Department of Education. The community of practice includes members from states as far away as Alaska and Hawaii— both of those states likely face extreme cases of supply chain challenges.
GW: How are the sessions structured to truly arrive at problem-solving, real world solutions, not just more conversation?
Cori: We will be meeting every other month. And there are two components to the community of practice. Each meeting will be composed of a topic-specific webinar that is open to the public, and then there’s a follow-up closed session for the members of the community of practice.
I think what’s really interesting about this is that because we’re from so many different states, we all have very different perspectives and thoughts about local procurement. The members are also from many different stakeholder groups—state agencies, nonprofits, consultants, food service directors. So they arrive with a big range of expertise and experience.
We’ll all bring to the table what our states are doing, what our challenges and barriers are. Regardless of where we are at, we generally share some similar barriers to local procurement and food access in our states. And of course, many states have incentive programs, like we had 10 cents a meal, and I’m really inspired to bring back ideas and solutions to Michigan so that we can think more broadly about what 10 Cents a Meal for Michigan’s Kids & Farms looks like in the future.
GW: What drew you to apply?
Cori: One main reason we wanted to be a part of the community of practice is that we lost funding for 10 Cents a Meal—for schools, early care and education centers—and we wanted to network with people about ways to bring back funding and shape whatever program will follow. Also, it seems that all of us in this work need to do some problem solving around local procurement. There’s a challenge in it that goes beyond “how do I purchase locally.”
Also, very important, how do we connect farmers to different institutions, whether that’s schools, early care education, senior centers, medical facilities, etc. As a state we are trying to figure out ways we can improve procurement on all of those fronts.
GW: Is there something unique to Michigan that causes problems for local food procurement?
Cori: One issue we face in Michigan is that our state is so geographically large—it takes 10 hours of driving to get from Detroit to Copper Harbor. But a lot of Michigan’s resources in food hubs and food provisions are really consolidated far south. I work in the northern tip of Lower Michigan, in a very rural area with communities that don’t have systems in place for distribution. It makes it really hard to move good quality, nourishing food around. When you have hundreds of miles between a farm and a distribution point it makes everything harder.
GW: What are some other logistical challenges you are hearing about in the Mitten?
Cori: We’re hearing that people understand that local procurement is a big priority across the state, but it needs more support. We need coordinators and actual staffing power. We need that middleman. We need that person who can help create directories, who can help do market matchmaking, which is essentially brokering sales.
GW: Beyond solving logistics challenges, are there any larger, more philosophical issues you are hoping to learn more about?
Cori: One thing I really want to learn is how we as a state can have more transparent, values-based procurement strategies. Procurement is essentially strategic sourcing, and in this case it’s strategic sourcing of local food from a supplier, and sometimes that’s direct from a farm, but that can also be from a food hub, food club, you know, anyone who’s aggregating food. Then you are aiming to bring that food into the broader food supply chain and move it to folks who are interested in buying.
The idea, though, is to find a more sustainable way, a way that is slightly less volatile, more stable. For example, look at what we are seeing with our loss of 10 Cents a Meal funding. That’s hurting local and regional farms. But also, look how that funding cut is hurting our students at schools. There are children who were offered certain meal items, but now they can’t have that food because their budget is more confined or restricted.
So, I’m really curious about what other states are doing. Like, what does value chain coordination look like, not just from a regional perspective, but from a state perspective. And then, I’d like to work collaboratively with those folks to find solutions to those common barriers and challenges.
And so I’m just excited to be a part of this conversation. These learning networks … I really believe they are the way we build a strong foundation, so we can have resiliency. 
Cori Fitzpatrick is Groundwork’s Farm to Institution Specialist.
cori.fitzpatrick@groundworkcenter.org
