Lincoln County

SNAP-Ed Assistant, Kayla Gibson

Success Story #4 "Hustonville Health Improvements"- 2018

The Hustonville Baptist Church coordinates a volunteer ran food bank which serves over 400 people a month. The need for a nutrition class was brought up, so a program was started with the people who come on Thursdays. It met once a month and had a great turnout, with a group of 22 that graduated through the program. This program was a great connection to make because there were so many people that were not being reached in the Hustonville area. For many people that live on the outskirts of town, traveling into Stanford is not easy to do. That is why meeting them in a location where they were already comfortable and used to going to worked very well. 

The relationships built as well as the quantifiable improvements made with this group were very encouraging! Upon exit, the average for diet quality improvement was 53% (2.1 Diet Quality Average). Physical activity was shown to have a 76% (2.2 Physical Activity Average) improvement, while food safety was shown to have a 51% (2.3 Food Safety Average) improvement. Another great outcome of this class was that it opened up the door for future programs that the Lincoln County Extension Office can provide. Because the church facility is given food donations from stores and vendors that are often random, many people don't know what to do with the donations or how to prepare them. Examples of this were things such as eggplants and avocados. The extension office will now begin bringing in recipes that correspond to any unique produce donations they receive in order to help the participants to get the most out of their commodities and make new healthy recipes that their families will love!