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For 25 years REAP Food Group has connected consumers, eaters, and buyers to local food producers through our Farm Fresh Atlas, Farm to School program, and Farm to Families program. REAP's mission is to transform communities through the power of good food. Now, REAP Food Group is hosting a local food showcase featuring entrepreneurs of color from the Madison area with an emphasis on our Farm Fresh Atlas (farmfreshatlas.org) and other collaborators and food system partners! Come meet local farmers, chefs, caterers, and food producers, hear their stories and taste their foods. If you represent an institution looking to expand local food purchasing or a consumer wanting to support more local food entrepreneurs, this event will be the perfect opportunity for you! We will have cooking and educational demonstrations from local chefs featuring foods available from farmers, samples, and more. The line-up so far includes Cafe Costa Rica, Tortilla Los Angeles, Booker Botanicals, Urban Triage, FairShare CSA Coalition, Mentoring Positives, and more! Join us at Garver Feed Mill on the historic east side of Madison and experience a taste of Madison while exploring the businesses and organizations at Garver as well. This event is generously sponsored by Silver Linings Foundation and co-hosted by Garver Events. ...

Update 6.13.2023: On Monday, June 12, members of Healthy School Meals for All held a rally inside the State Capitol in support of free school meals for all and other provision rejected in the recent state budget vote. Read about the rally and hear speeches on Channel 3000, CBS, WORT, and SoundCloud. It’s not over, it’s just the beginning. During the current 2023-2024 state legislative session, many organizations, including REAP Food Group, have been advocating to include the Governor’s Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids plan in the final Joint Committee on Finance budget. The Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids plan includes three components: 1) Appropriating state dollars to provide free school breakfast and lunch meals to all Wisconsin K-12 students (also known as Healthy School Meals for All), 2) Fully funding state school breakfast reimbursement at 15-cents per meal served, as called for in state law, and  3) Reimbursing school districts an additional 10-cents per meal for those including locally sourced foods. We are disappointed that the Joint Committee on Finance removed both Healthy School Meals for All and the 10-cent local food reimbursement incentive from the budget. The $2.75 million allocated in the Governor’s budget for schools to serve local foods, out of an historic one time state budget surplus of approximately $7 billion, would have grown markets for Wisconsin farmers, stimulated the local economy, and provided all children access to fresh local foods through school. The $2.75 million allocated in the Governor’s budget for schools to serve local foods, out of an historic one time state budget surplus of approximately $7 billion, would have grown markets for Wisconsin farmers, stimulated the local economy and provided all children access to fresh local foods through school. Even though breakfast reimbursement is still in the budget, a majority of the Joint Committee on Finance members must vote to approve including it in the committee’s budget bill. This vote will occur at a committee meeting in the next few weeks, when they vote to approve the Department of Public Instruction’s budget.  REAP and the Healthy School Meals For All Coalition will continue to advocate for Healthy School Meals for All and  the 10-cent per meal local food reimbursement incentive, as these are vital investments in our communities that create Wisconsin jobs in food and agriculture, save families time and money, and ensure all children get the nutrition they need to learn and succeed in school. [T]hese are vital investments in our communities that create Wisconsin jobs in food and agriculture, save families time and money, and ensure all children get the nutrition they need to learn and succeed in school. Meanwhile, REAP Food Group commits to using the platform we’ve built over 25 years in the community to push even past budget approval. We will: Connect schools with local farmers and growersListen to voices from around the state to understand needs and solutionsEducate our audience on the urgency of free school meals for the health of our children and local economy Despite being removed from the budget, there is still time to voice our support for Healthy...

Just as REAP Food Group set up shop in its new Garver Feed Mill office in April, 2023, we also welcomed Katie Rozas as our new Development Director. A member of the REAP Board of Directors since July 2021, and once a member of the Development Committee, Katie has an intimate understanding of REAP’s work. Her role will be to oversee and guide a growing portfolio of stewardship efforts including grants management, fundraising events, and donor relations.  Whether in the classroom or in the boardroom, Katie is passionate about social justice and environmental protection. Prior to joining REAP, she spent over 15 years in multilingual learner education, strategic communications, and marketing.  Katie was introduced to REAP six years ago by her then-four year old daughter who came home describing her new love for jicama sticks, which she tasted during snacktime, thanks to the REAP Farm to School snack program. “I understand firsthand how the REAP mission, vision, and dedication of the organization has made an incredible impact in my community and beyond," Katie said. "I am thrilled to now dedicate myself to extend that impact and ensure REAP secures the funding and resources necessary for its programs and services to grow and flourish for many years to come." “I am thrilled to...

Last month, Governor Evers included free school meals for all, strategic investments in school breakfast funding, and a local purchasing incentive program in his proposed biennial budget. More specifically, the Governor’s Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids plan includes:  Creating the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids program, an initiative aimed at improving student health and reducing hunger by investing $120.2 million in FY 2024-25 to fully fund school breakfasts and lunches for all children;  Providing $4.3 million in FY 2023-24 and $4.7 million in FY 2024-25 to increase the school breakfast reimbursement rate to 15 cents per meal and extending eligibility for the reimbursement to independent charter schools and state residential schools operated by the Department of Public Instruction (DPI); and  Incentivizing schools to support Wisconsin farmers, food producers, and local economies by providing $2.75 million in FY 2024-25 for an enhanced 10 cents reimbursement per meal for those including locally sourced foods.  Read REAP's letter to the Joint Finance Committee HERE. Take Action Submit a brief video in support of free school meals for all by Friday, March 31. Full instructions are provided here. Having farmers and local food advocates speak to this issue strengthens the coalition’s ability to engage elected officials who are interested in agriculture and economic development. 2. Join the next Healthy School Meals for All Wisconsin coalition meeting on Thurs, March 9, from 1:30-2:30 pm. Register to join the meeting and Add it to your monthly calendar. 3. Take a look at who is on the Joint Committee on Finance and the Education Committees (Assembly and Senate). If you know anyone from these representatives’ home districts, encourage them to contact their legislators in support of the Healthy Meals, Healthy Kids plan. It is also helpful to contact any Republican legislators, even if they are not on either of these committees. You can find your elected officials here. 4. Submit a letter to the editor expressing your viewpoint. There are many local newspapers, magazines, and online media outlets that accept brief letters to the editor. Here is the submission information for Cap Times, the Journal Sentinel, and the Wisconsin State Journal. Sign up here if you’d like to stay updated and/or be alerted about opportunities to provide public testimony. If you have direct questions, please reach out to Allison Pfaff Harris at REAP Food Group (allisonph@reapfoodgroup.org). See additional resources from the School Nutrition Association of Wisconsin on how to set up meetings and some suggested talking points. ...

REAP Food Group is thrilled to announce that this month we are packing our boxes and moving to the historic Garver Feed Mill! Learn more below, courtesy of Garver Feed Mill: The award winning Garver Feed Mill, located next to Olbrich Botanical Gardens, is pleased to welcome their new tenant, REAP Food Group. REAP Food Group, a non-profit organization based in Madison, WI, believes in transforming communities, economies, and lives through the power of good food. Their work centers around creating an equitable, local, and sustainable food system in Dane County and Southern Wisconsin through Farm to School, Farm to Business, and Community Partnership programming.  “When Garver Feed Mill contacted me last summer about potentially moving to the space, little did I know this has been several years in the making,” explained REAP Executive Director, Phil Kauth. “As Garver continues to find innovative ways to support the local food system, we are incredibly excited to bring our work assisting in creating a more equitable food system straight to them.” While REAP will be the first nonprofit to grace Garver’s brick walls, it will join an impressive roster of fourteen other entities specializing in food production and food systems, health/wellness and hospitality including Kosa KOSA Ayurvedic Spa & Retreat, Garver Events, Ledger Coffee Roasters, Twig & Olive Photography, Glitter Workshop, Nessalla Kombucha, Sitka Salmon Shares, Ian’s Pizza, Calliope Ice Cream, Perennial Yoga, Clouds North Films and Roll Play Madison. Throughout the year, Garver also hosts several food-oriented events include the Late Winter Dane County Farmers Market, Farm to Flavor and Femmestival, a festival that celebrates and uplifts womxn, femmes and nonbinary entrepreneurs, artists, and food producers.  The Feed Mill, once a massive beet producing factory was converted to a feed mill in 1931 and achieved landmark status in 1994 as an important surviving link to the agricultural industry in the Madison vicinity.  "In a poetic sense, the buildings historical connection to the region’s agriculture economy has come first circle with the businesses inside Garver and the organizations like REAP and Dane County Farmers Market doing the incredible and import work to create a healthier, more sustainable food system” says Bryant Moroder, a member of the Garver Redevelopment Team.   “The timing of the move is perfect for REAP,” continued Kauth. “Not only is the space inviting, but the possibilities for REAP to collaborate to host and participate in community events at Garver will help us fulfill our mission to transform lives through the power of healthy, local food.” ...

A partnership between Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food and Nutrition and REAP Food Group spent much of 2022 bringing local agriculture straight to classrooms thanks to a USDA Farm to School grant. The Harvest of the Month program includes Virtual Farm Tours and a series of video shorts featuring vegetables that students will find right on their lunch trays! In Spring and Fall of 2022, REAP Food Group led virtual farm tours across southern and southwest Wisconsin with help from Shiftology Communications. K-5 classrooms across Madison public schools zoomed into the tours and asked farmers questions live, while REAP polled classrooms to find out how many varieties of apples or mushrooms students could name, or what they thought CSA stood for (= Community Supported Agriculture). Meanwhile, REAP brought on independent video producer Bria Brown, based in Atlanta, GA, to produce engaging short films featuring peppers, greens, corn, and cucumbers. Together Brown, Farm to School Director Allison Pfaff Harris, and Communications Manager Samantha Kincaid visited several local growers and food makers over the summer of 2022 to collect stories and footage. I was repeatedly amazed by all that can be grown in compact spaces and places.Allison Pfaff Harris, REAP Farm to School Director Over the lifetime of the grant, the team got to share the inspired voices of farmers who often spend their days deep in manual labor and managing teams both tiny and large. [O]ne of my takeaways was that farmers are very forthcoming with their knowledge, and want a place to share what they do. These tours provided the opportunity for farmers to share their work and knowledge on a larger platform, without having to leave their farms," said Farm to School Director, Allison Pfaff Harris. All tours and vegetable videos are available for public viewing at the Harvest of the Month page. A Special Thank You to the farmers and chefs who contributed their time and passion to this grant: Alex Booker, Badger Rock Urban Farm and Booker Botanicals Armando Pérez, Pérez Produce Bethanee Wright, Winterfell Acres Elena Terry, Wild Bearies Heidi and Julian Zepeda, Tortilleria Zepeda John & Halee Wepking, Meadowlark Organics Liz Griffith, Door Creek Orchard Patty Grimmer and Ky Christenson, Wonka’s Harvest Sarah Leong, Squashington Farm Tommy Stauffer, Vitruvian Farm Yimmuaj Yang, Groundswell Conservancy Yusuf Bin-Rella, Trade Roots Culinary Collective ...

students in front of Badger Rock Community Garden sign

Noah Reinkober, a student in the UW Madison School of Human Ecology, joined us this fall as a Farm to School intern, supporting Director Allison Pfaff Harris and REAP's partnership with MMSD Food and Nutrition. The following article was researched and written by Noah. Many people today are familiar with the concept of a “food desert," not just those in academia or the fields of sociology and human ecology. The term, which began being used in the 1990s, refers to a neighborhood, often in an urban environment, which has very little access to food. People living in a food desert may have restaurants in the area, but have to travel far to purchase foods at a grocery store, or they may simply be lacking in nearby food entirely. As the understanding of this issue has progressed over the last few decades, activists and researchers have proposed different labels for these areas. “Food swamp," a term which came into usage about a decade ago, refers to the same areas, but emphasizes the fact that these neighborhoods are often saturated with unhealthy foods, rather than lacking food entirely. Both of these terms are misleading when it comes to the conversation about food access, however. Deserts and swamps, unpleasant as they’re often perceived to be, are natural parts of the global environment with unique and thriving ecosystems. Neighborhoods which are deprived of healthy food options are not naturally occurring. To better describe this phenomena, Karen Washington, a Black farmer, activist, and organizer, came up with the term “food apartheid.” Rather than labeling a lack of food access as a natural occurrence, Washington’s term explicitly states the role that politics, economics, and histories of classism and racism play in the matter.  Food apartheid occurs when institutions fail to invest in communities which need the investment the most. Food apartheid occurs when institutions fail to invest in communities which need the investment the most. Segregation, poor public transportation, redlining, high food prices, lack of access to growing land, and perceived lack of profitability for private businesses are just a few examples of things which inform food apartheid, all of them products of society, not nature. Karen Washington grew up in New York City, so that is the context from which she is working, but the systemic racism and classism which created food insecurity in NYC exists in Madison, WI too.  According to Nicholas Heckman, a Public Health Planner in Policy and Food Security in Madison, because of how new the concept is, food apartheid “hasn’t yet been effectively measured at the local level.” Rather, data around food access and food insecurity often comes from the state or county, and researchers must use “various proxy data points and population characteristics to draw conclusions.” Though now dated, and lacking the context of COVID-19, Heckman’s 2016 report, Hunger and Food Security in Wisconsin and Dane County, sheds some light on the disparities which exist on the state and county levels. In 2016, it was reported that 12.4% of all people in Wisconsin, and 11.8% in Dane...

On Tuesday, May 24, REAP Food Group, in partnership with Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food and Nutrition, zoomed into classrooms for our second Virtual Farm Tour, this time with farmers Patty and Ky of Wonka's Harvest in Hollandale.   Geared to grades K-5, the live presentation included an experiment demonstrating the benefits of no-till agriculture using various soil mediums. Patty and Ky answered questions from students about the favorite crops they grow, and they shared their love of bees. Watch a recording of the tour, and consider following Patty and Ky's lead and improve your own garden soils with compost! Virtual Farm Tours are made possible through a grant and brought to classrooms by REAP Food Group, in partnership with Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food and Nutrition in an effort to deliver the sights and smells of Wisconsin-grown foods to MMSD classrooms through virtual farm tours, videos, and books. Shiftology Communication Virtual Farm Trips® facilitated the tours. The unique PR firm offers "one-of-a-kind learning experiences by connecting participants to real working farms from the comfort of their computers, classrooms, conference rooms and living rooms." https://youtu.be/hmk7bahUJCQ ...

On Thursday, May 5, REAP Food Group, in partnership with Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food and Nutrition, zoomed into eighty-three classrooms for a Virtual Farm Tour at Vitruvian Farms in McFarland. The tour marked the first in an ongoing series to deliver the sights and smells of Wisconsin-grown foods to MMSD classrooms through virtual farm tours, videos, and books.  Geared to grades K-5, the live presentation included a tour of the farm led by co-owner Tommy Stauffer*, poll questions for the nearly 1,500 students gauging their knowledge of, and like--or dislike--of mushrooms, and a Q&A for Tommy. Hosts discovered that the students already had a rich vocabulary in mushroom varieties, and were at least amenable to tasting them! Watch a recording and stay tuned for the next tour at Wonka's Harvest in Hollandale before schools close for the summer. Virtual Farm Tour is made possible through a grant and brought to classrooms by REAP Food Group, in partnership with Madison Metropolitan School District (MMSD) Food and Nutrition. Shiftology Communication Virtual Farm Trips® facilitated the tour. The unique PR firm offers "one-of-a-kind learning experiences by connecting participants to real working farms from the comfort of their computers, classrooms, conference rooms and living rooms." *Tommy Stauffer is also a REAP Food Group board member. https://youtu.be/FxqWG0x0Mgs ...

REAP Food Group's staff and board are thrilled to welcome Philip Kauth as our new Executive Director. After earning a Ph.D. in Horticultural Sciences, Phil spent eight years working with the Iowa-based non-profit Seed Savers Exchange. As Director of Preservation, Phil led a team that stewarded a living collection of 25,000 open-pollinated seed and plant varieties and a historic apple orchard. With Seed Savers Exchange, Phil's work fused his scientific training with the organization's mission to preserve and share seeds, their integrity, and culturally significant stories. "For communities to have control over their foodways, they need to have control over the seeds they want to grow and share," Phil explains. In pursuit of REAP's mission to make healthy food grown well, accessible to all, and in a manner that honors communities' agency over their foodways, Phil brings open ears and a collaborative spirit. He embraces a leadership style that emphasizes learning and building trust to maximize the values and strengths people bring to the table, and he draws from experiences partnering with historically underrepresented groups. Phil’s work with Seed Savers Exchange has included collaborations with Asian American farmers on the West Coast searching for linkages to ancestral food crops, the Indigenous Seed Keepers Network to restore seeds to tribal communities, and the organization's multi-disciplinary collaboration, the Heirloom Collard Project. “REAP has exciting times on the horizon and happily welcomes Phil Kauth to lead the organization into the future[.]...

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