The Lunch Box is a project of the F3: Food Family Farming Foundation.

WHAT WE BELIEVE

We believe all children must have access to healthy food to grow their bodies, minds and future. We must feed their knowledge while also providing wholesome sustenance to their physical needs. The tools for feeding such change must be equally available to all schools no matter their geography, budget or situation. The relationship children have with food will evolve into a virtuous circle benefiting not just themselves but our society as a whole.

WHAT WE DO

F3 is focusing its efforts on The Lunch Box: Healthy Tools To Help All Schools

The Lunch Box is a web-based portal that enables all schools and school districts to make a healthy difference for all children in America by providing relevant information and the pragmatic tools necessary to make good food available for all kids.

The Lunch Box is in beta mode. When fully functional, it will provide the multi-faceted approach necessary to transition any processed food based K-12 school meal program to a whole foods environment where food is procured regionally and prepared from scratch for the student population. As a free resource, The Lunch Box will provide the essential “tools” for examining, learning about, and implementing this type of healthy meal program. From the “why” to the “how to,” The Lunch Box will offer a complete menu of choices for those seeking to implement program change in their schools and districts.

CONTACT US

Contact Nicole de Beaufort at Nicole@thelunchbox.org for more information.

We are based in Boulder, Colorado. To send us mail, please use this address:

PO Box 20708, Boulder, CO 80308

The Lunch Box Project - Timeline

2000 Revolutionaries in the Lunchroom.
Chef Ann Cooper and her colleagues start collecting knowledge about how to transform school lunch so that kids can grow up to be healthier and more productive adults.

2004 Aha! Moment.
Cooper envisions The Lunch Box – a systemic change initiative that makes available for free all the hard-fought lessons and tools needed to make school lunch healthier for our kids.

2007 Idea Takes Root.
Cooper brings her idea to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Food and Society initiative. Kellogg Foundation awards The Lunch Box Project a two-year planning grant. The grant is administered by the Chez Panisse Foundation.

2008 Proof of Concept.
Feasibility planning and concept building takes place with a small team of renegade lunch ladies, chefs, educators, marketers, thinkers, and technologists. The Aha! Moment is now ready to take form.

2009 Watershed Year.
From Aha! To Ta-da!, in 2009 The Lunch Box Project team moved at lightning pace to turn concept into reality, build a foundation from scratch, generate funding for serious R&D, and engage in a partnership with tremendous potential for Americans to join the school food revolution.

2009 Test the Concept.
A demonstration site for The Lunch Box Project is built. The Project is more than a site; it's about people connecting with each other and building a movement to change the way we feed our kids. The site demo is used for focus group testing with key audiences: school food service, advocates, and funders. The feedback? “How soon can you build this? Because we really need it!”

2009 F3: Food Family Farming Foundation established.
The Foundation is awarded 501(c)(3) status by Internal Revenue Service. Its vision: all children must have access to healthy food to grow their bodies, minds and future. We must feed their knowledge while also providing wholesome sustenance to their physical needs. The tools for feeding such change must be equally available to all schools no matter their geography, budget or situation. The relationship children have with food will evolve into a virtuous circle benefiting not just themselves but our society as a whole. The Foundation is headed by a food systems and foundation startup expert and backed by a team of professionals.

2009 Partners and Funders Join the Project.
Whole Foods Market partners with Cooper to support the “School Food Revolution” in stores with employees and customers to raise awareness about what healthy lunches for kids can be. Other funders pitch in and help The Lunch Box Project's R&D team develop and test recipes. The Lunch Box Lab team also develops nutritional analysis tools and a “Meal Wheel” to help anyone planning menus to make great choices. The Lunch Box Project builds a “beta” site to test with early audiences, including Whole Foods customers and Colorado and California school districts.

By 2010 Functionality Fully Enabled.
The Lunch Box Project continues to add tools, builds community engagement and champions for school food change. Analysis of beta site informs the development of the site 1.0 and future iterations.

2010 More Than a Site.
Cooper and others make public appearances and develop tools of change to connect more people with each other. The Child Nutrition Act is reauthorized or will be and this community will have a voice in informing the policy makers in charge of change. More kids in more places will have healthier choices at the cafeteria because The Lunch Box Project will continue to add recipes. The Community grows.