FoodCorps School Nutrition Service Member

noah.doederlein@foodcorps.org |

Noah serves as a School Nutrition service member with FoodCorps, an assignment with a broader systems focus than most FoodCorps service members. In his role, Noah works with food service directors and school administrators, including those within the Charlevoix-Emmet Intermediate School District, to increase procurement of locally grown food, transition to more scratch-made meals, and add more culturally relevant foods to school menus based on student population and parent feedback. The assignment can make for complicated days and multi-layered work, but the twin goals are plain to see: Help schools feed students in more nourishing ways, and support local producers and farmers.

“I’m a local food advocate,” Noah says. “I think that food is a powerful way to reshape our communities to be ready for what comes next. I’d like us to reimagine and reclaim some of the relationships that have faded, relationships to the planet and between each other that have been weakened because of the way we produce our food.”

Noah has been especially gratified to be doing hands-on work during his FoodCorps year thus far. Building gardens, helping out in school cafeterias and kitchens, strategizing to modify school menus. “I spent so much time as a college student, it felt siloed off from the active work, the doing, and now it’s exciting to be getting my hands dirty,” he says.

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