The Floyd County Cooperative Extension Office Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program partnered with Mountain Comprehensive Care’s Auxier Greenhouse this year. The Auxier Greenhouse is a program around the area that provides supportive instruction to developmentally and intellectually disabled adults, all in a positive environment. The program typically grows and sells a variety of locally grown vegetable plants, house plants, annual flowers, perennials, trees and shrubs. In doing all this, the participants have the opportunity to gain life skills and improve their independence through vocational tasks, social interaction and interpersonal relationships. 

The SNAP Program partnered with the Auxier Greenhouse to bring cooking and nutrition skills to the adults that were receiving their services. However, because of the pandemic, we all had to adapt and do things a little differently. Instead of our usual in-person meetings, monthly online zoom meetings took place to ensure everyone’s safety. Virtual lessons would be conducted, then the participants were educated on how to prepare simple, healthy meals for themselves step-by-step through food demonstrations. Throughout our meetings, all recipes were prepared with healthy and budget-friendly ingredients. One of the participants said, “I never would have thought some of this stuff could taste so good, until I made it and tried it for myself!”

With implementing the lessons and food demonstrations, ninety five percent of the participants showed improvement in regards to food resource management. Seventy three percent showed improvement in food safety. Lastly, and maybe most importantly, ninety eight percent of participants improved their overall diet quality!