We’re honored to be among the select winners of the Posner Foundation’s first national call for proposals to reduce food waste by reshaping consumer environments. The grant award of $150,000 will support the start up of Chefs in Prisons, a project that seeks to make food prepared in prison kitchens more healthy and appealing so that it’s less likely to end up in the garbage.
In partnership with Brigaid, a national organization with a track record of improving food service in schools, we’ll place and support a Chef-in-Residence within the Maine Department of Corrections tasked with revitalizing food service across correctional facilities statewide. The Chef-in-Residence will focus on promoting efficient food preparation practices that result in nourishing, thoughtfully-prepared meals.
Success in Maine would demonstrate one way to address the poor quality of food in most prisons nationwide, a problem with significant repercussions captured in our groundbreaking 2020 report Eating Behind Bars. Additionally, the training provided will reach beyond professional kitchen staff to also encompass incarcerated people assigned to kitchen jobs, expanding their employment prospects after release.
Impact Justice was selected as one of 13 awardees from a competitive pool of 130 applicants and is the only awardee focused on reducing food waste in a correctional setting.
