Despite the vast number of school closures across the country, many of you continue to serve your communities by finding alternative ways to feed students while also fielding questions from parents. In challenging times like these, we are so grateful for people like you, and we couldn't be more honored to partner with your district.

As you work to navigate this new landscape, we want to do all that we can to help. Below are a few resources that will hopefully provide some assistance to you and your staff:

With many schools needing to close or extend breaks, we want to help you get the word out to your community about emergency feeding site locations or important COVID-19 updates.

For districts using MealViewer, here are a few features that might be able help:

We know that many of you are working hard to feed children in need while schools remain closed during this difficult time. To aid in this effort, we're providing a free service that allows you and your staff to more easily manage and collect meal requests for all your emergency feeding sites.

Here's how it works:

With so much uncertainty in the country right now, I wanted to let you know our Heartland family is here for you and your school community. We know our district partners have been affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and many have had to extend breaks or close their schools altogether. Here are some of the steps we’ve taken to continue to serve you, while providing a safe work environment for our staff:

Throughout the year, we shared many helpful tips and hints to help you get the most from your program. Here's just some of our favorites from 2019:

With over 150 nutrition professionals and 70+ software training classes - there are a lot of reasons you won't want to miss Connect 2020! So if you've already booked your travel or if you're just reviewing the session catalog, checkout these 6 reasons you and your staff need to be at Connect next year:

In the 2018 School Nutrition Operations Report, 56.5% of districts surveyed offered or planned to serve vegetarian meal options. For many districts, this might include peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or meatless pizza. While this may be simple and familiar, there is an opportunity to incorporate more vegetarian meals that meet student's ever-changing taste preferences and provide a wider variety of nutritional value.

Have you heard? Registration for Connect 2020 is open! Join us this spring in Durham, NC from March 31 - April 2, 2020 for our biggest training event of the year. Register before November 1 to save your seat (and some money!)

From in-depth software training to powerful open-forum discussions, Connect 2020 is your chance to connect with schools nationwide to share ideas on how to tackle the challenges facing our industry and build a network of forward-thinking food service directors and staff.

Today’s generation of students - aptly dubbed “iGen” - are more digitally connected and technically savvy than any other group on the planet. They grew up with the internet and never knew a time where information, a photo, or a status, couldn’t be shared in seconds with the swipe of a finger or click of a button.

The manner in which iGens consume information is vastly different than the students that came before them. Most iGen teens are multi-screen users and are accustomed to consuming large amounts of media from multiple touch points all at once. With smartphones in the hands of 95% of teens and the ubiquity of photo, video, and information sharing apps like TikTok, SnapChat, and YouTube, the way that today’s students communicate and engage with one another has drastically evolved.  So isn’t it time that we adapt the way we communicate and engage with them?