Company description

Who We Are:FoodCorps is a fast-scaling $10M nonprofit powered by a nationwide team of leaders who connect kids to real food and help them grow up healthy. Through our partnership with AmeriCorps, we recruit, train and place emerging leaders in limited-resource schools for a year of service delivering our three-ingredient recipe for healthy kids. Serving under the direction of a community partner, our corps members work to put three drivers of health in place across the physical, cultural and educational environments of the schools we serve: Knowledge: food and nutrition education that gives kids the information they need to make smart choices Engagement: hands-on activities like gardening and cooking that foster skills and pride around healthy food Access: lunch trays filled with nutritious meals from local farms Our Mission: Together with communities, FoodCorps serves to connect kids to healthy food in school. Our Vision: We are creating a future in which all our nation’s children––regardless of class, race, or geography––know what healthy food is, care where it comes from, and eat it every day. Through our work, future generations will grow up to lead healthier and more productive lives.

Job description

What We’re Looking For:

FoodCorps seeks an exceptionally motivated candidate to direct our program delivery and development in Connecticut. Reporting to the VP of Programs and working closely with the FoodCorps Connecticut Development Director, this position is responsible for directing the multi-component service of 15-20 full-time FoodCorps AmeriCorps members in partnership with an existing network of community and school-based organizations dedicated to improving child health. Through effective implementation of our Theory of Change and Healthy School Toolkit, the FoodCorps Connecticut Program Director will ensure that the schools we serve will continue to make incremental progress improving their healthy school food environments, with the eventual goal of school-wide programmatic sustainability. Additionally, this position will be responsible for building relationships with business leaders, policy makers, education officials, and other grass-tops entities that shape school food environments in the state through their work and decisions. This is a full-time position based in our Connecticut office, and requires statewide travel and occasional travel to national program events.

Core Responsibilities:

• In partnership with a state advisory committee, develop a statewide strategy for future scale and systems change for FoodCorps programming in CT
  • Identify high need school districts that are ripe for partnership with FoodCorps
  • Identify, maintain and establish partnerships with high quality service sites for member placement
  • Ensure FoodCorps’ financial health through collection and monitoring of school and/or service site partnership fees
• Lead, manage and oversee FoodCorps Connecticut program
  • Ensure superior program quality and fidelity across service sites in partnership with national staff and existing FoodCorps networks
  • Oversee and help evaluate the implementation of program priorities like the Healthy School Toolkit and Sprout Scouts
  • Oversee program performance management and monitoring, including data collection, site observations and AmeriCorps compliance
  • Selection and management of service sites
  • AmeriCorps member recruitment, selection, training and management
• Serve as key contact for FoodCorps’ partnership with AmeriCorps in CT
  • Support national staff with AmeriCorps compliance reporting
  • Lead AmeriCorps site visits as requested
  • Strong commitment to national service and supporting AmeriCorps members
• Develop and sustain professional relationships with key stakeholders across CT including CT Advisory Board, school district leaders, principals, elected officials, food service directors and companies and peer organizations
• Develop and Implement In-State Trainings
  • Design and implement trainings for service members and site supervisors, including state orientation, site supervisor training, and other events..
• Manage the FoodCorps Connecticut Fellow
  • Supervise the state-level team leader, who will serve as the primary contact for CT service members
  • Provide ongoing professional development opportunities for the fellow
  • Ensure consistent experience with the national FoodCorps fellowship program

Who You Are:

You are motivated to address one of the biggest societal issues of our time: childhood health. You possess and are able to deploy the diverse ­­skills of program design, program delivery, relationship building, network management, advocacy and leadership development across a broad swath of projects and deliverables. You excel at translating national priorities to local contexts while also being adept at facilitating new program developments that meet the needs of communities served by FoodCorps. You are highly collaborative, with an entrepreneurial spirit. You have a solid background in the theories and practices of FoodCorps’ three pillars and are generally well informed regarding farm to school, school garden, nutrition education, healthy schools, and community organizing. You have experience managing teams and supporting new, pre-professional leaders. You are an effective communicator and are known for delivering high quality work products. You are adept at seeking and using feedback to shape your work.

Skills of the Ideal Candidate:

• Demonstrated commitment to addressing race, class, gender, place and other social justice barriers
• Minimum five years working in non-profit management in a related field
• Strong local knowledge of Connecticut networks for farm to school, child health, health equity, food security, and other related fields
• Strong internal drive and ability to manage and deliver on projects independently
• Entrepreneurial, with a creative drive to solve problems and identify and fill gaps
• Learning oriented
• Effective written and verbal communicator, comfortable communicating through phone, email, and video chat functions
• Experience working with school and school district administrators and school personnel
• Broadly networked in the farm to school, school health and/or school garden movements
• Strong foundation in the unique needs of FoodCorps’ network of service members and site partners
• Ideal candidate will have experience supporting and managing AmeriCorps members and relationship with the CT AmeriCorps Commission office

Compensation

this position is: salaried

Application instructions

Deadline

no deadline