Author: Lorie Dunn
Planning Unit: Grant County CES
Major Program: Nutrition and Food Systems General
Outcome: Intermediate Outcome
The Grant County Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program-Education (SNAP-Ed) Assistant along with the Family Resource Center Director at Sherman Elementary decided to offer a Virtual Adult Group via Zoom. The school was having difficulty getting limited resource families to participate in afterschool events due to limited or no transportation, so a virtual option was offered to serve these families. Since 21% of children in Grant County live in poverty and 100% of children at Sherman Elementary receive free lunches, the family resource center provided the groceries needed to prepare recipes. Since only 8% of Kentucky adults meet the daily fruit recommended intake and only 6.3% meet the daily vegetable intake recommendations, one goal was to increase diet quality. Ten families met with the SNAP-Ed Assistant and the Family Resource Director for the classes and all ten completed the series. Using the Healthy Choices Curriculum, the Grant County Senior Assistant had a series of online classes. Classes included lessons on budgeting, breakfast, food safety, knowing your limits, My Plate, meal planning and reading labels. As a result of the classes, families improved on their food resource management. By the end of the series, 60% of families were using a monthly food plan and 70% were using coupons. Of the participating families, 100% improved diet quality and 50% increased the number of vegetables eaten each day and 60% improved their fruit intake each day. Additionally, 50% increased their weekly dark green vegetable intake. One participant stated, “we love learning new recipes or meals we can fix that maybe cheaper and healthier”. Another participant stated, “we liked the simple recipes that were cheap and the interactive classes”.
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