From the Frontline: Marsha's Story
Posted by Diana Flora on Thursday, May 13, 2010
Girls from Marsha’s Girl Scout troop in our Side By Side class with Chef Vince
With five kids, Marsha Kozmor never seems to slow down. She is a busy mom and very involved in her community, a small town just south of Detroit, “I’m on the School Board. I’m vice president for the PTO for the middle school. And we have a neighborhood team that runs the Girl Scouts for this area, and I’m on the team. I’ve been a Girl Scout leader for 15 years,” Marsha explains.
With her family on the go so often, it has been difficult to insist on healthy eating and home-cooked meals. “Well, [mealtimes are] always hectic, just because we’re involved in a lot. I work a lot in the community …so we eat on the run a lot, and so we eat a lot more junk,” Marsha shared.
With so many mouths to feed and on a limited budget, Marsha has learned the value of being thrifty: “I’ve always been a real shopper…just because I’ve had to be….”
After taking a nutrition and cooking class with Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline, through Gleaners Community Food Bank, Marsha noted a distinct change in her family’s eating and shopping habits. Three of her daughters took the class with her and learned how to cook healthy meals alongside their mom.
Her 16-year-old daughter even cooked dinner for the family since taking the class, preparing a Macaroni and Cheese recipe in the Operation Frontline cookbook. Marsha was delighted with the results: “It came out really good! She made the whole thing! She made the whole dinner by herself!”
Marsha noted that preparing meals and grocery shopping has become more of a family affair: “[We] went grocery shopping a couple of days ago, and I made them pull out the labels and start reading them… We did this all through the grocery store… I think it’s a good lesson. I really do.”
Marsha has not only encouraged her own family to adopt the principles in the Operation Frontline curriculum, she has also set up classes for other families in her Girl Scout troop, so that they could learn about food budgeting and nutritious foods as well.
She even credits the class with helping her family to slow down and spend more time together, saying, “We’re trying – we’ve had a few more meals together. We really try to do that together.”
If you would like to read more about Operation Frontline in Detroit, check out their blog.
May 13, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: AmeriCorps, Cooking Matters, event, nutrition education, Operation Frontline
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