Alice Harris was used to changing eating habits within her own family with a history of diabetes and hypertension. Her mother lost many family members to complications with their health, and Harris knew she had to reform their eating habits to stay healthy.

As the lead organizer at the Healthier Choices Coalition in Howard County, Alice Harris is continuing her passion of working to provide fresh foods in her home county alongside many residents and organizations. Most recently, the coalition announced a farm-to-table food initiative with five others to add healthier, fresher meals to Howard County Public Schools in collaboration with the school system and Horizon Foundation.

“School meals play a critical role in promoting student health, wellbeing, academic success, and — this is a very important word — equity,” said Brian Ralph, the director of Howard County Public Schools’ Food and Nutrition Services. “The primary goal of the collaboration that we have fostered with the Horizon Foundation and the Healthier Choices Coalition is really to develop a countywide promotional campaign focused not only on providing healthy food, but providing cost-effective options for a growing diverse community.”

The initiatives, born from a survey of about 375 parents and students in the county, were created to provide healthier, higher-quality and fresher food to public school students, according to Glenn Schneider, the Horizon Foundation’s Chief Program Officer.

Feedback from survey results included a desire for healthier, fresher and higher quality food, as well as requests for better communication between community members and the food and nutrition service, according to a Thursday news release. The coalition brought the survey results to the public school system, which pledged to the following actions on Thursday for the upcoming school year:

A farm-to-school table pilot program to add locally or regionally produced foods into schools, accompanied with efforts to promote nutritional education.

To conduct at least two regional, dinner taste tests for community members about existing and potential menu items.

Holding town hall meetings with student and parent groups, including the Howard County Association of Student Councils and the PTA Council of Howard County, to get feedback and suggestions on food served.

The use of the food and nutrition portal, LINQ Connect, to receive feedback on school food from community members as the school years continues.

Regional roundtable discussions to receive feedback on the appropriateness of food served.

The implementation of a shared-table pilot program in select schools to investigate if food waste will be reduced as a result.

The coalition decided on the initiatives with data from federal and state levels, Harris said, to continue to build on healthy food initiatives recently launched, such as the Roving Radish Mobile Market in June. Based on the data, many people live in food deserts, which are areas where it is difficult to buy affordable and quality fresh food, Harris said. The biggest disparity in access to affordable fresh food was among people of color, according to Harris.

The new initiatives will also look to provide food from a variety of different cultures to support the county’s diversity, according to Schneider. If some foods aren’t available, some families might not be encouraged to rely on meals served in public schools, Schneider said, and many students and parents asked for more cultural dishes in survey feedback. Initiatives such as the ones announced recently are especially important in Howard County, where some community members heavily rely on school meals, Schneider added. “Knowing that for many children, this is their primary source of nutrition,” Schneider said. “To the extent we can make that as healthy as possible, we’re able to change the lives of many different children for the long haul.”