This was the question that our program faced when we offered SNAP-ED to the Independent School District in Corbin, Whitley County. We have been working in the Middle School for almost a year doing after-school program in the form of Cooking Club, and Summer Camp through our signature program Rookie Cooking Camp (RCC), however, we haven’t been in able to work with the enrichment programs during the school hours. Lucky for us, we were able to combine the use of the Yummy Curriculum that has Spanish resources with and delivered the lessons in a bilingual way.

We brought SNAP-ED to the Spanish Class, the kids learned vocabulary and nutrition at the same time, the Spanish teacher, that also teaches in the elementary school was thrilled not just because the hands-on activities that we did but also the level of participation of the students.

This program started as a Pilot and after the first 4 weeks, we were asked to repeat the program we another two groups of students. We emphasized in four pillars of nutrition education, which are the following:

My Plate

Food Safety

Smart Choices

Physical Activity

At the end of the program we found that we have a 46% Improvement in the frequency of eating vegetables at lunch, a 69% overall food safety habits, 38% reading Nutrition Fact Labels and 38% improvement in incorporating physical activity daily.

The experiences of kids having someone that is a Native Spanish Speaker in their classroom teaching a nutrition class has been outstanding, some comments:

“I love this class, best snack ever” Male 5^th grader, after making crunchy bananas.

“I never thought I will like this” Female 5^th grader after making and trying for the first time a Whole Wheat tortilla, use for the “Rainbow Crunchy Veggie Wrap”

The teacher has already asked us to come back in the fall and have this program done for all 5^th graders and 4^th grader.

The School also organized a family engagement, a family night where parents and students cook together a meal and then share a conversation over the meal. Parents are very encouraged by their kids trying new food.