The National Center for School Health Nursing at the American Nurses Foundation (ANF) has a 5 year cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Adolescent and School Health (CDC/DASH) to develop an educational plan for school nurses. The goal of the ANF Project is to develop a strategy that enhances the role of school nurses in reducing and managing school-based foodborne illness outbreaks at the local and state levels.

In 1997, President Clinton launched a National Food Safety Initiative to improve consumer education, prevent foodborne illness, improve surveillance, and create a seamless food safety net. This initiative brought together federal agencies such as the; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Adolescent and School Health (CDC/DASH) and other national partners to resolve issues of food safety.

CDC/DASH established grant funding for national organizations in 1999 to enable schools to prevent and control foodborne illness. The Food-Safe Schools Project at CDC/DASH was created to improve prevention education, responding to an outbreak, and foodborne illness surveillance in schools.

The ANF Food Safe Schools project has developed a manual for school nurses that highlights the role of the nurse in the prevention, early detection and management of foodborne illnesses in the school population.