First Lady Tracey Quillen Carney is leading a Delaware team studying how Virginia has leveraged public-private partnerships to ensure school-age children have regular access to healthy meals.

Delaware was one of 10 states and territories selected by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices to participate in a learning lab on state strategies to reduce childhood hunger. Carney said Virginia First Lady Dorothy McAuliffe provided “inspirational leadership” on the issue of childhood hunger at the lab, which ran Monday and Tuesday.

She attended with state officials and a director from the Food Bank of Delaware.

“We’ve been encouraged by the many ways that efforts already underway in our state align with national best practices, and I’m so proud to learn from those who have been leading such good work in Delaware. We’ve also picked up a few ideas from other states, especially our friends in Virginia, and it’s exciting to think about how we can, very realistically, build alliances and make progress toward meeting the most basic need of the next generation of Delaware’s workforce and leadership,” Carney said. “The quality of our schools and the growth of our economy, as well as public health, depend on our success in that effort.”

The governor has tasked the team with developing a plan to establish partnerships between schools and public-private organizations to support initiatives for reducing childhood hunger.