Cumberland County Middle school tried a new leadership program with their students introducing a club day once a month where the students chose from about 15 programs that included anything they did not have in a normal daily school curriculum. The school recruited local volunteers from different areas of the community including the Extension Service staff to come and teach a class. The goal was to show students how they could learn from extra curricula activities.

As all the students in Cumberland County are on free meal plans they fit into SNAP-Ed programs.  I decided that the” Wellness in Kentucky” Curriculum was a program that could be a winner. 13 students from grades 6and 7 signed up and 12 graduated (one was absent at last meeting). These students were already involved in various sports such as track, baseball, basketball, softball and cheer leading.

The students were given nutrition surveys pre and post of the program. The pre survey showed they did not understand how their eating habits effected their health, academic and athletic performance. Some basketball players admitted they ate a hamburger and French fries or chips before a game. Most drank energy drinks before, during and after their games but no water.

Some students were also able to choose a healthy breakfast at home but went without instead. All had a school lunch menu to choose from but ate only the proteins and carbohydrates portions of their meals leaving the fruit and vegetables.

Food safety, like hand washing was not practiced and most students admitted they did not wash their fruit and vegetables at home before they ate it or someone did it for them.

We had lessons on all five food groups, drinking water instead of sugary drinks, and prepared healthy snacks so they could try and make these at home themselves. We discussed food safety practices in each class. The students did the unit pre and post lesson surveys at each meeting, students were encouraged to help each other with the answers to each survey. This helped them feel empowered to create positive changes to their diet and health while helping their peers. Some students shared how their families liked the snacks they made at home.

The post program survey showed that 100% of the graduating student had improved their food safety practices like washing their hands before handling or eating food. 92 % washed their fruit and vegetables before eating and 83 % of youth were putting food back in refrigerator more often within 2 hours. I asked the students also if they felt they had learned much with the Winners Circle club and they ALL said they had and would recommend the club to the next year group.