[Hiring] Community Outreach Operator @TSNE

Role Description

The Maine Food Convergence Project (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.

• 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 — to help school nutrition professionals identify and act on local sourcing opportunities.
• Facilitate relationships and connections across the supply chain that can help move local products into institutional markets.
• Support coordination related to aggregation, seasonality, storage, processing, transportation, and distribution.
• Identify barriers related to regulations, procurement requirements, infrastructure, market access, or other system conditions and help interest-holders identify potential pathways forward.
• Develop and maintain trust-based relationships with regional food-system interest-holders, including small and mid-sized food businesses.
• Engage directly with producers, fishers, processors, distributors, institutional buyers, and community-based businesses to understand needs, challenges, and opportunities, particularly with rural, Wabanaki, immigrant, Black and Brown, Amish, and/or other communities that have historically been underrepresented in food-system decision-making.
• Strengthen connections with Farm & Sea to School networks and other relevant regional and statewide partners.
• Participate in regional meetings, events, and networks where relationship-building and coordination can advance the Switchboard's goals.
• Bring community and regional perspectives into the ongoing development of the Switchboard model.
• Support regional interest-holders in creating and maintaining Switchboard profiles, listings, and other relevant information.
• Help interest-holders translate real-world needs into effective use of the platform, including listings, searches, resource connections, and matchmaking.
• Provide onboarding and orientation to the Switchboard for regional users.
• Offer user support that is responsive to varying levels of digital access, technological familiarity, and language access.
• Identify barriers to platform usability and accessibility and communicate recommendations for improvement to the MFCP team.
• Maintain appropriate records of coordination activities, connections, referrals, and emerging regional needs.
• Contribute information, stories, and observations that demonstrate the real-world impacts of the Switchboard and illuminate gaps within the food system.
• Identify patterns related to supply, demand, infrastructure utilization, procurement, and market access.
• Share relevant insights and recommendations with MFCP to inform platform improvements and program strategy.
• Coordinate regularly with MFCP staff and other Switchboard team members to support alignment across regional and statewide efforts.
• Participate in team learning, feedback, and reflection opportunities related to the ongoing development of the Switchboard model.
• Share regional insights that may inform policy, investment, infrastructure development, and program design.
• Assist with outreach to business and organizational sponsors to sustain the project.

Qualifications

• Expertise in value chain coordination.
• Experience developing deep connections within food production, fisheries/aquaculture, processing, distribution, or related food-system sectors.
• Experience working within school nutrition departments, school nutrition markets, or institutional food procurement — for example, as a school nutrition director, food service staff, distributor serving schools, or Farm & Sea to School partner — is strongly preferred.
• Experience living and/or working in northern, central, or eastern Maine.
• Ability to build and foster relationships within rural, Wabanaki, immigrant, Black and Brown, Amish, and/or other communities that have historically been underrepresented in food-system decision-making.
• Familiarity with regulatory environments related to food production, processing, distribution, and/or institutional procurement, particularly USDA Child Nutrition Program requirements.
• Strong relationship-building skills and ability to work across diverse sectors and communities.
• Experience with outreach, facilitation, community-based work, or network development.
• Ability to navigate complex systems and translate between different interest-holders, such as producers and institutions.
• Strong organizational and communication skills; ability to manage multiple relationships and priorities.

Requirements

• Experience with Farm & Sea to School programs specifically.
• Experience improving accessibility, including language access and inclusive engagement practices.
• Experience with food-system infrastructure, aggregation, distribution, processing, storage, or logistics.
• Comfort supporting people with varying levels of technology access and familiarity.
• Interest in systems change and collaborative problem-solving.

Benefits

• Work will be primarily performed remote, with travel required within Maine as appropriate to the work.
• Regular Part-time, 20 hours per week; generally Monday–Friday during business hours, with occasional evening or weekend hours for events and regional engagements.
• The hourly range for this position is $27.00 - $29.00/hr and is commensurate with experience.
• Generous Paid-Time-Off (PTO): twelve paid holidays, prorated vacation time, one week of personal holiday, and ability to accrue up to 487.5 hours of health leave time for benefited staff.
• 80% Employer-paid, offering some $0 deductible Health Insurance through Harvard Pilgrim along with several low-deductible plans.
• Low-cost Harvard Pilgrim/Point32Health Dental and Vision.
• Flexible Spending Accounts (FSA) for Health and Dependent Care.
• Employer-paid Life, Long- and Short-Term Disability Insurance.
• Employer-paid Pension and Employee-paid 403b plan through TIAA.
• ...and more!