Community Outreach Operator, Local Food Switchboard

The Maine Food Convergence Project (MFCP) (mainefoodconvergence.org) works to build a coordinated, collaborative local food system that supports the well-being of people, communities, and the planet, with a focus on social and racial equity and environmental sustainability. Partnered with seven food system networks across Maine, we create spaces where people working on food, land, and climate issues can build relationships, explore collaborative solutions to complex challenges, and turn shared priorities into collective action.

We work to grow community and deepen relationships so that, together, we can create more meaningful and lasting change.

MFCP is a fiscally sponsored project of Third Sector New Englance, Inc. (TSNE) (tsne.org)

Local Food Switchboard Overview

Hosted by MFCP and funded collaboratively by Maine foundations and federal grants, the Local Food Switchboard serves as a central hub for coordinating logistics services within Maine's local food system. Specifically, it acts as a “virtual assistant” to the School Food Marketplace (SFM). The Switchboard streamlines local food procurement, connects various interest-holders in Maine's food system, and increases local food sourcing in schools and beyond.

It provides detailed information on a) food products and businesses, b) processing, distribution and other supply web infrastructure, and c) food system resources such as financial and technical assistance.

Besides increasing nourishing local food in schools, a key goal of the Switchboard is to build stronger connections with food producers and harvesters who face systemic barriers to capital and market access due to racism, transphobia, ableism, classism, and immigration status. By fostering collaboration, we aim to support their infrastructure, equipment, market access, and resource needs, creating a more equitable and resilient food system.

MFCP seeks a Local Food Switchboard Operator focused on Community Outreach, bringing deep local relationships, food-system knowledge, and community-based expertise to the activation and development of the Switchboard within a defined region, community, or food system sector of Maine.

Community Outreach Operators are locally embedded leaders who strengthen and activate the Local Food Switchboard through deep relationship-building, coordination, matchmaking, and real-world application. While the Switchboard's central team stewards the platform and statewide strategy, Community Outreach Operators bring a place-based perspective to understanding and responding to the realities of producers, institutions, and communities on the ground.

The role is particularly focused on strengthening farm- and sea-to-institution connections, especially with K–12 public schools; supporting effective use of food-system infrastructure; and bridging gaps between supply-chain actors through both human coordination and effective use of the Switchboard platform.
Given the Switchboard's central role in supporting the School Food Marketplace, experience within school nutrition departments or school nutrition markets is especially valuable to this role.

This is a temporary position that is funded by the Quimby Family Foundation and the USDA/Farm to School 2-year Grant that ends June 30, 2028. Renewal is contingent upon continued funding.

Essential Functions

Community/Sectoral Coordination & Matchmaking

• Serve as a key community and/or sectoral connector among producers, fishers, processors, distributors, institutional buyers, and other food-system interest-holders, with particular attention to K–12 public school markets.
• Draw on knowledge of school nutrition operations — procurement cycles, budgets, kitchen capacity, and USDA meal program requirements —…