Nourishing Communities with Creative Approaches
Posted by Pat Nicklin on Wednesday, June 23, 2010
To honor innovative organizations that connect hungry kids with food, Share Our Strength created the No Kid Hungry Innovation Awards. Three awards of $25,000 each will be granted to winners in three different categories. Voting just opened in the final category, Nourishing Communities: More Meals for More Kids. Here are two of the five innovative programs nominated for reaching across communities and building coalitions to ensure that all kids receive the food they need to flourish.
California Food Policy Advocates (Oakland, CA): a statewide public policy and advocacy organization dedicated to improving the health of low-income Californians by increasing their access to nutritious and affordable food, would use the award to help fund its Breakfast First Campaign. The campaign will improve participation in school breakfast through innovative approaches, such as breakfast in the classroom, Grab ‘n Go, and Second Chance Breakfast.
Classroom breakfasts are served, eaten, and cleared during the first 10 to 15 minutes of class, while teachers conduct administrative activities and begin lessons. Second Chance breakfast allows students to have a healthy breakfast during morning recess. Grab ‘n’ Go can be served before the bell as a Second Chance Breakfast.
Flexible programs like these (instead of breakfast in the cafeteria before school starts) are known to dramatically increase participation. Students don’t need to arrive early to eat; breakfast is offered to all with no stigma attached to it; and food is offered when students are able and ready to eat—ensuring far more kids enjoy a healthy start to the school day.
Plus Time New Hampshire (Concord, NH): would use the grant to help fund a new program called HANDS, designed to ensure that more low-income and at-risk youth receive healthy nutritious snacks and meals at no cost.
In 2010, PlusTime NH will recruit 10 new afterschool programs, serving 50 children per program for a total of 500 participants in the HANDS pilot, and will help its sites access federal dollars that are available to fund nutrition programs.
PlusTime NH was created to address the increasing problem of unsupervised youth and help communities with limited resources establish afterschool programs. Since its establishment in 1990, PlusTime NH, has become a state leader and is recognized nationally among the 39 statewide afterschool networks.
Once the HANDS pilot is completed, PlusTime NH plans to share lessons learned and provide materials detailing the steps other statewide afterschool organizations would need to take to develop this type of program.
Look for more stories of nominees in the Nourishing Communities category in an upcoming post. You can vote once a day until June 30. Cast your vote today and help a community leader win a $25,000 No Kid Hungry Innovation award.
June 23, 2010 | 0 comment(s) | Tags: afterschool programs, Innovation Awards, No Kid Hungry, school breakfast
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