FoodCorps recognizes the need to address obesity and diet-related disease where we can have the greatest impact on the most vulnerable children: schools. Schools are where children spend a third of their day and often eat half their daily calories. FoodCorps AmeriCorps members serve alongside educators and local leaders to support community-driven initiatives to connect kids to healthy food in schools.
Jumpstart is active in 14 states across the nation and in the District of Columbia, bringing together Corps members and preschool children in low-income neighborhoods to help these children develop the language and literacy skills they need to be successful in school, setting them on a path to close the achievement gap before it is too late.
In Connecticut, the problem of educational inequity is pervasive. Of the approximately 550,000 students attending Connecticut’s public schools, one-third live in low-income households and are overwhelmingly students of color. We are building individual and collective leadership in partnership with students, families and communities so that, one day all students will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.
ConnectiCorps is an AmeriCorps program that creatively bridges the growing gap between the demand for critical services and the ability of Connecticut’s nonprofits to respond. Since COVID-19 has hit our state, these gaps are most apparent in the areas of food insecurity, antipoverty services and housing –the areas ConnectiCorps seeks to address. ConnectiCorps members support nonprofits to safely recruit, retain and utilize volunteers in ways that will help make positive, lasting change through COVID-19 relief, recovery and beyond.