Trimble food services director Jackson selected for national felllowship

Toni Jackson, Trimble County School Food Service Manager, chosen for Chef Ann Foundation National Healthy School Food Pathway Fellowship.

The Food Service Director for Trimble County Schools has been chosen as one of 24 school food service managers across the country to receive the Chef Ann Foundation 2024 Cohort of National Healthy School Food Pathway Fellowship.

Toni Jackson is in her second year as Trimble County food service director, having come up through the food service ranks at New Castle Elementary in Henry County.

She earned her associate degree at the former National College in Florence, Kentucky, and transferred to Eastern Kentucky University in Richmond, Kentucky, to begin work on a social work degree. During that time she began working at the New Castle school and there discovered her real passion for food service. In addition to working as Trimble’s food services director, Jackson also serves on Campbellsburg City Council where she resides.

The participants — 11 of whom are from California — were all selected as experienced school food professionals committed to driving healthy, sustainable, and equitable school food reform.

The fellowship, now in its second year, was designed to cultivate school food reform leaders. Over the 13-month period Fellows will expand their knowledge about how food in schools affect the wider US food system and become experts and advocates for healthy school food policy.

Each food service fellow will design and execute a unique capstone project that will not only benefit their home district but also serve as a model for districts nationally seeking to enact school food change. That change can include increasing local food procurement and collaborating with local farmers to transition from heat-and-serve meals to scratch-cooked meals.

The extent to which a child has access to quality school meals, and finds those appetizing and satisfying, can influence their academic performance as well as their physical and emotional well-being.

The program consists of several components, a week of on-line training, two separate site visits, a week at the University of Mississippi — where the Institute for Child Nutrition is headquartered — as well as other areas of food service development.

As a component of the application process, Fellows had to submit a 5-minute video of their goals and what they hoped to accomplish. Jackson’s video was created amid construction on Trimble’s new Junior-Senior High School kitchen and cafeteria project completed for this school year.

“I had no choice as the high school cafeteria was being constructed at the time of my application, so I developed my video in the construction area wearing a hard hat,” Jackson noted, adding that probably made her application stand out as unique.

However, the application process also included a resumé and several zoom interviews before being accepted for the fellowship.

The Chef Ann Foundation is named for school food reform champion Chef Ann Cooper, an internationally recognized author, chef, educator, public speaker, and advocate of healthy food for all children.