An essential goal of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Education Program is to equip youth of all ages with nutritional knowledge. Doing so ensures that they grow to make healthy decisions later on as adults. This is a particularly important task for Floyd County. According to the Floyd County Fitness and Nutrition Coalition, children born today in this county can expect to live up to seven years less than children in other, more well-to-do counties in Kentucky.

              This school year, the Floyd County Cooperative Extension Office Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Education Program partnered with John M. Stumbo Elementary to deliver virtual nutrition education to 36, 2^nd grade youth. With this age group, the LEAP curriculum was utilized. LEAP stands for “Literacy, Eating, and Activity for Preschool/Primary”. This curriculum uses storybooks and activities to teach children about nutritious foods, healthy eating habits, hand washing, food safety, and being physically active. 

              Invitations to join the teachers’ Google Classroom Meet would be sent. Once joining, we would all chat through webcam, read a story book, and afterwards have a discussion. Nutritional questions pertaining to the book were asked, so the kids could share their thoughts. After that, a kid friendly recipe was cooked and demonstrated to the youth and also a copy of the recipe was sent to them. Once, during one of the recipe demonstrations, a student excitedly said “Wait... That recipe is healthy?! It looks so good! I would love to try cooking that here at my house with my mom and dad! I bet they would like it too”. One of the teachers also made the comment saying, “My kids look forward to meeting with you each time. They’re all stuck at their houses right now with kind of the same routine each day. So when you come along and talk about healthy choices and foods, and read to them, I really do think it is the highlight of some of the students’ days”. With that being said, it really just goes to show that, even with virtual education, a positive impact can be continued with youth.