How Walmart's Commitment to Nutrition Benefits Share Our Strength
Posted by Dave Slater on Thursday, January 20, 2011
On Thursday, Walmart announced a comprehensive food and nutrition program to provide its customers with greater access to healthier, more affordable food choices. A key component of Walmart’s effort will be increasing charitable support for nutrition programs that help educate consumers about healthier food solutions and choices, including Share Our Strength’s Cooking Matters™ program (formerly known as Operation Frontline®).
Cooking Matters is a top-notch national program that empowers families at risk of hunger with the skills, knowledge and confidence to make healthy and affordable meals. In 2010, more than 11,000 families across the country participated in Cooking Matters courses at 715 sites across the country. Currently Cooking Matters has 26 programs operating in 21 states plus the District of Columbia andhas emerged as an integral part of Share Our Strength’s strategy to end childhood hunger.
Participants in Cooking Matters courses learn how to select nutritious and low-cost ingredients and prepare them in ways that provide the best nourishment possible to their families. Cooking Matters serves a diverse audience of low-income families, who bring the richness of their backgrounds, cultures, languages and kitchen practices to Cooking Matters classes. Most are enrolled in food assistance programs including SNAP (formerly food stamps) and free or reduced-price school meals. In the past year, more than 1,500 culinary and nutrition experts shared their knowledge by volunteering with Cooking Matters courses.
We know that Cooking Matters makes a difference because we evaluate the program’s impact. Of the adults and teens who graduate from a Cooking Matters course, 76% report an increase in fruit or vegetable consumption, 78% report an increase in key skills and strategies for making healthy food choices, and 79% report an increase in using key food-budgeting strategies.
Cooking Matters is nationally sponsored by the ConAgra Foods® Foundation and generously supported by the Walmart Foundation.
Walmart’s commitment to nutrition has the potential to make a huge impact on the millions of Americans who struggle with hunger on a daily basis. Their Foundation’s support of Cooking Matters has enabled us to connect even more children to the healthy foods they need. And Walmart has also helped us launch Shopping Matters™, a guided grocery store tour that can easily be implemented at the local level by community-based volunteers and agencies who are interested in helping low-income families make the most of their food resources. As Cooking Matters continues to expand in 2011, we will keep you posted on our progress in bringing the country a step closer to making No Kid Hungry a reality.
January 20, 2011 | 2 comment(s) | Tags: Cooking Matters, partners, walmart
Comments
2 reader comments so far.
Thank you Walmart!!
Posted by robyn morgan on January 20, 2011
Great program. Looking forward to learning more about it.
Posted by Celia Niepold on January 20, 2011
Post a comment
All fields are required (your e-mail address will not be displayed)