Launched at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Real Food for Kids: Chefs Feeding Families is a joint initiative with Washington, D.C. metro-area chefs, restaurants and local farms to provide nutrition security to school children and their families. Chefs Feeding Families, which began as an emergency response, providing hot, prepared meals to alleviate the unprecedented demand for food assistance, also employed restaurant workers who might otherwise have been furloughed. The program has evolved to a more sustainable model, providing meal kits and produce bags that include recipes, easy preparation tips, and nutrition information in a bilingual format to inform and inspire the preparation of nourishing meals at home.
Since March 2020, Real Food for Kids: Chefs Feeding Families has provided over 350,000 nourishing, plant-forward meals and produce bags to school children and their families facing food insecurity.