F O S T E R I N G A N E C O SYS T E M
The vision, co-created by system players and now officially named reWorking Lunch, is for “all schools across the country to serve delicious, appealing, seasonally and culturally relevant food that is free from stigma and barriers to access.”
FoodCorp’s catalytic role in reWorking Lunch presages an orientation that focuses on improving the health of the ecosystem itself in addition to achieving specific goals. Shifting how different players work with each other so that, over time, they can develop new innovations that address the conditions of tomorrow (complexity scientist Brenda Zimmerman called this improving system “fitness”) seems to some like an ambiguous goal. It’s actually the central goal systems change agents should be focused on to help society effectively address our existential challenges, which are continuously shape shifting. Consequently, FoodCorps has their eyes on achieving holistic systems change. They are intent on impacting all three levels of systems change – Structural, Relational, and Transformational. Figure 2 details a few of the barriers they are focused on.
At the core of FoodCorps’ work and its leadership in the reWorking Lunch effort is the simple but profound re-purposing of the school food system. The goal is to align around centering healthy food as the sole purpose of school meal programs nationwide, ensuring millions of children, particularly those with limited access to nutritional food, get the nourishment they need to thrive every day in every school. 21,000 school districts across the country present a ripe target.
Deconstructing the Bird Cage
18