Situation

As a new agent in the county I wanted to offer programs to bring people into the office and to get to know people in the community.  Also, our EFNEP assistant had recently retired so there wasn’t a lot of nutrition being taught in the community. Several agents had tried cooking through the calendar with the NEP food and nutrition calendars.  I thought, everyone likes to eat and the best way the heart is through the stomach. 

Educational Response

In response, the “Cooking through the Calendar Series” was started. The target audience was the low income community Christmas families and homemakers. Each month the recipe was taught, with the class participant preparing the featured dish. Along with the preparation, we improved our cooking skills, would discuss nutrition and practiced food and kitchen safety.  While eating the meal, we would critique the recipe and discuss what we might change when we prepared it for our family at home.   Often, the discussion included how to make the recipe more economical. As a result of this series, the Baptist Church food pantry contact me.  They had pork tenderloins, dried beans and fruits they needed to give away. A Let’s cook together class was offered, which quickly filled up. So another was scheduled. A recipe booklet with past NEP calendar recipes was assembled.  At the class, 4 recipes were prepared and each family left with a recipe book and a bag of food. 

Partners:

Snap - ed funds have been utilized to teach the monthly cooking through the calendar classes.  The Baptist church provided food from their food pantry and their church kitchen for the class.  The Family Life Center Coordinator at the Church assisted with the class and the Interagency council help advertise the classes.

Outcome

The classes have been successful.  The participants indicate they are learning new skills and I overhear many saying things like “when I try this recipe at home I will do …” or “my husband will love this.”, so I know they are cooking the items at home.  The classes are filling up every time, we have people calling the day of the class and we have to turn them away. The participants are learning and practicing the behaviors at home. Since one of the objectives was to get to know people in the community and be accepted, I might have reached a heart or two through a stomach.