LEAP for Education seeks partners and facilitators for middle-school food-insecurity project

Hillary Kopp, director of middle school programs at LEAP for Education, told the Lynn Food Policy Council the organization received funding from the Phoenix Food Hub to run a spring enrichment focused on food insecurity and healthy food for middle-school students at Marshall Middle School.

Kopp said the program will include community mapping of food resources, hands-on cooking experiences and a final student project: a cookbook combining healthy recipes and information on how to access food resources locally. The program will run in April and LEAP is seeking a facilitator with local knowledge, guest speakers from food-access organizations and potential field-trip hosts so students can see pantry operations and food-supply logistics.

"We are looking for guest speakers to come and talk really about what you do, how you help encourage food access...and also sort of field trip opportunities. I would love for them to actually go some places, see some of these things, understand what it takes to run a food pantry," Kopp said.

LEAP’s Lynn program serves students at Marshall Middle School and is federally funded; Kopp said student participants mirror the school’s demographics and that many are lower-income, newer multilingual learners, or students with special needs. She described the project as both nutrition education and civic engagement, giving students a platform to learn about local food systems and create materials to share with peers and families.

Council members offered to share the facilitator job description and to discuss volunteer and field-trip logistics with LEAP staff after the meeting.