Action Alert: Contact Your Legislators Today to Support Farm to School Grants and Local Food Incentive Funding!

Please take a few minutes of your time today to contact your legislator, and ask them to fund the Farm to School FRESH Grant Program with $750,000 and the Local Food Incentive with $2 million in the FY25 budget .  

Thanks to your advocacy, bills to establish a Massachusetts Farm to School Grant Program and a Local Food Incentive recently passed out of the Joint Committee on Education and are now under review by the Ways and Means Committees. We need your help to build on this momentum and see these bills pass and funds allocated for their operation in the next fiscal year. Download a fact sheet about these two bills and the budget request. 

It’s easy to make your voice heard.

We've drafted a message, but we encourage you to personalize the email to make your message more powerful - you can type directly into the message field! Share your story and why you believe a farm to school grant program and local food incentive will be good for students, for farmers, and for communities! If you are a current FRESH Grant recipient or participant in Northeast Food for Schools, please share the impact of this funding on your program.  

  • "Hello, I'm a constituent from [your town] and I am calling today to ask you to farm to school program funding within the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) in the FY25 budget. 

    Farm to School funding would expand the competitive FRESH grant program established with ARPA funding and continue a one-time federally funded Local Food Incentive program. During the first two rounds of applications for the FRESH grant, DESE received over $4M in requests for the $1M in available funding. Please support $750,000 for the FRESH Grant program and $2 million for the Local Food Incentive in the FY25 budget to help more schools and early education and care centers provide students with healthy, locally grown foods in school meals and food education while supporting new markets for our farmers and fishermen.”

    Find your legislator & their contact information.

Thanks for your help sustaining farm to school programs across the Commonwealth. Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions. 

Share with your Networks

Help spread the word! Use the social media text below to share this Call to Action with your networks. 

“I’ve contacted my legislator to ask for their support for Farm to School program funding! Join me and ask your legislators for their support today: bit.ly/FY25BudgetReq

#farmtoschool #mapoli”

If you’d like to call your legislators, see the sample script below.