Webinar: Guide to Creating a Community Rooted School Food Program

British Columbia, Community connectedness, Cooking, Eating, Elementary school (K-6), High School (9-12), How-to resource, Local food, Middle school (7-8), webinar

Presented by Farm to Cafeteria Canada and The Coalition for Healthy School Food, in partnership with Flourish! School Food Society

On June 11, 2025 Farm to Cafeteria Canada, together with the Coalition for Health School Food, welcomed Matthew Kemshaw, Executive Director of Flourish School Food Society to present the national launch of the highly anticipated Open Source Guide to Community Rooted School Food Program. This webinar and accompanying guide are for anyone interested in, or involved with: planning, sourcing, purchasing preparing and/or serving school meal and snack programs across Canada.

Based on Flourish’s experience providing community-driven food services to 30 schools and over 3,000 students, this guide, now available open-source to communities across Canada, offers actionable steps for every stage of school food program development and delivery.

If you are curious to learn how to launch or improve a school food program that emphasizes scratch-made meals, sources local ingredients, celebrates diverse cultures, and provides nourishing food that your students will love, then this resource is for you.

“This is generational work – it will take many generations to build the school food program that Floruish imagines. We don’t think that we know everything, but we have learned a lot and we want to share it openly. -Matthew Kemshaw

Explore the Guide – what’s inside?

Access the open-source guide on the Flourish! School Food website.

Inside, you’ll find resources broken down into 5 sections:

Planning: includes tools for completing an environmental scan in your community to help inform the vision, mission and goals of your program as well as how to communicate this information. This section also includes partnership-building and financial modeling templates.
Set-up: developed by a team of chefs, this section includes information on getting ready to make and share food in your school community. Find tips on commercial kitchen equipment, compliance, sourcing, as well as team and volunteer management tools.
Ready to launch: this section is all about communicating with schools. It has information for supporting school staff with serving food, including food-safe and other best practices, like ensuring food access is stigma-free. It also has tips about working within the confines that are faced by many schools, such as limited food infrastructure and limited time for lunch.
Meal preparation & delivery: includes menus, food safety and sanitation guides, distribution logistics, and online ordering system design and management.
Sustaining the program: in its first 2 years, Flourish has learned about crisis management (e.g. road closures, dropped food trays), monitoring and evaluation, how to create a district-wide school food program plan that includes diverse partners as well as how to scale-up quickly. In just 2 short years, they have gone from serving 20 0to 1,100 meals per day and they also operate a fully-functioning grocery delivery program for schools.

For Flourish’s detailed monthly menus and recipes, click here.

Watch the full webinar recording

In this session, Matthew:

Provided an overview of how Flourish School Food came to be, and the breadth of school meal and grocery delivery services it provides
Shared his vision for this Open Source Guide which draws on his 20+ years of experience supporting school food and food literacy programs, as well the entire Flourish team’s experience and lessons learned building their program.
Offered tips on how best to adapt and optimize it in a range of community contexts

Looking for other resources like this one? Check out the Farm to School Resource Centre.

About Matthew

Matthew is one of the founders of Flourish! School Food Society. He has worked for over twenty years supporting school food program development through academic research and not-for-profit roles, including ten years working in management positions in the not-for-profit sector. Matthew holds a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies and an MA in Environmental Education and Communication. He is a committed father and caretaker of the land. His family settled on southern Vancouver Island three generations ago and he continues to live in the unceded territories of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations.

About Flourish! School Food Society

Flourish! School Food Society brings nourishing change to the way students eat and learn about food in schools. Because what and how people eat significantly impacts the wellbeing of our communities and planet.

In the communities it serves, Flourish is working to help build school meal programs for all students that are supported by curriculum-connected, experiential learning opportunities in school gardens, kitchens and composts. Every school is unique. They aim to provide tailored services to meet schools where they’re at, and support the slow development of nourishing school food environments.

Flourish! School Food Society operates on the never surrendered lands of the People of the Songhees and Esquimalt Nations, today known as Victoria, BC. They serve schools across T’Sou-ke, Scia’new, Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ First Nations.

To learn more about Flourish! Please visit their website.