CA School Meals for All Sign-On, L.A. County Fees & FFVP Reminders

Here’s what you need to know this week:

Support CA School Meals for All in 27-28

Let’s band together again to ensure that critical investments in School Meals for All, Kitchen Infrastructure & Training, and Farm to School continue to be a top priority for our state! Sign on to the 2027 School Meals for All Coalition letter by Friday, Oct. 30.

➡️ Sign-ons don’t roll over from year to year ~ even if your district or organization joined the coalition last year, please sign again!

❗L.A. County Health Permit Fee Hike

Speaking of banding together, if you’re in LA County there will be a public meeting held tomorrow, Sep. 30, at 10 am PT regarding fee amendments that impact school cafeterias. Many of our partners and clients are urging LA County school nutrition directors and staff to attend and unite against the proposed fee hike! In some circumstances, the proposed fees could cost districts upwards of $100,000 more than last school year (an increase of ~500%).

We also urge advocacy partners to get involved, as the fee increases will disproportionately penalize schools that are scratch-cooking. Read more about the proposals here & register for the meeting!

FFVP Grantee Reminders

1. For SY 26-27 FFVP grantees, the annual mandatory training is due Sep. 30! CDE requires all FFVP grantees to complete this mandatory three-part online orientation series. The training series is available on the Nutrition Services Division (NSD) Learning Site.
2. The FFVP Final Report survey for SY 25-26 grantees is finally out! Complete the survey for all FFVP grantee sites by Friday, Oct. 16 at 5 pm PT.

⭐️ Resources

• September Checklist
• SY 26-27 Adult Meal Pricing Tool
• Simplified Buy American Exceptions Tracker
• Training Library Course Catalog
• ICYMI! The Lunch Break Sep. 3 Recording

📆 Upcoming Events

• ✨ Oct. 1: We're discussing Financial Management on The Lunch Break!
• Oct. 7: The Secret Ingredient: Building the School Food Workforce - CAF
• Oct. 13-15: NFSN Partner Meeting - NFSN (in person!)
• Oct. 15: CA Farm to School Summit - CDFA (in person!)
• ✨ Oct. 15: Join our first call for the New & Aspiring Directors Academy (NADA) by LunchAssist!
• 🎉Oct. 12-16: National School Lunch Week
• 🎉Oct. 18-24: Farm to CACFP Week

LunchAssist is an allowable use of the Cafeteria Fund, KIT Funds, and R&R Grant. 🥳 Schedule a demo to learn more.