i-family program was started with the Elementary school administration and the cooperative extension Family and Consumer Science agent to encourage families to be proactive in their child’s life at home and school and to help their children be confident and successful.

The group soon found that there was another issue that they had to deal with and that was that not many fathers attended the program this was for a number of reasons like single parent families, grandparents raising children and fathers having jobs out of county or working shifts that don’t allow for them to attend.

As the Extension NEP Assistant I was asked to assist in teaching the dads group at i-family meeting by teaching family nutrition. It was a new audience for me and it was interesting to hear from the dads on how they managed in caring for their families. When we pre surveyed a few said they did most of the cooking for the family. Most knew how much it cost to feed the family, some knew how to budget for food and where to get help for commodities. Our Challenge was to help the dads with recipes for meals, diet quality, and improve the food safety practices to protect their family health. I was impressed with the Fathers resolve to help by doing with less for themselves to feed their families and how interested they were in the healthy aspect of teaching their children and spouses about healthy choices. The post survey showed that 50% more of the group ate more than one kind of vegetable per day and 67% drink more than six cups of water per day, 50 % thought about more healthy food choices and making small changes in their lifestyles to be more active. The improvement continued into food safety with more washing their hands before preparing food and 67% now using a meat thermometer to check for food safe temperatures after receiving the meat thermometers in the nutrition program. A very encouraging and healthy sign for family life.