Tag Archives: farmers markets

WIC–Nutrition Education

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Hi Everyone,

I am nearing the end of my practicum at Delta Health Care (DHC) WIC in Stockton, Ca.  The main focus of my time there was to help the nutrition educators with nutrition education materials including classes and a bulletin board.  I also provided nutrition education at the local farmers market every Thursday.  DHC was giving out $20 farmers market vouchers to each of their WIC participants, but the vouchers needed to be redeemed at the market, in hopes that participants would actually use them!

Each month at WIC, there is a different nutrition education topic.  While I was there, I created the bulletin board for the July/August topic called “Fun for All”.  The educators were trying to get away from too many words and focus more on lots of pictures.  Once the bulletin board was completed, I also taught the corresponding class, which showed participants various ways to be active, and at all ages.  This included how to be active at home, work and life in general.  For example, getting their children involved in house work can also be a way to stay active, along with taking the stairs instead of the elevator when out and about.  The classes are interactive and the participants are encouraged to actively participate by answering questions and giving their feedback on various topics.

Food demos are something new to DHC and was started by one of the educators here in March.  I was able to assist the educator on Thursdays with the food demo, which was fun and widely accepted by the participants.  The food for the month was homemade no-bake granola with went along with the Fun For All topic.  It was simple and delicious!!

My preceptor also asked if I could create a class about reducing sodium intake, I titled it Eating Right With Less Salt.  This class will be taught next year as one of the monthly topics.  I also edited/made changes to DHC’s current Food Safety class by removing words and adding more visuals.  I updated the class with more current information and made it more relevant to the participants’ needs.

I was also able to attend a collaboration meeting with the Lead Commitee, which I had no idea even existed here in Stockton.  This committee screens low-income children who live in older housing for lead and does testing on them to determine their blood lead level.  It has been found that many, many children are exposed to high levels of lead and show high levels in their blood.  Lead poisoning has been linked to behavioral and emotional issues in children so this committee is doing a great thing by finding these children.  The state then mandates that the landlord/homeowner make the necessary home improvements to remove the lead from the home.

Overall, the main purpose of my time here at DHC WIC was to help the educators create, improve and implement the nutrition education that is provided to all WIC participants.  It has been a great learning experience.   The attached picture is the bulletin board that I created, which went out to the 3 other DHC sites here in San Joaquin County.

Thanks everyone for reading my post!!

Saccone Bulletin Board

Kristen Saccone 🙂

 

Healthy Options mid-season notes

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The project I’m working with changed its name to Healthy Options just prior to its launch in early June.  We have issued 2 months of farmers’ market vouchers to our participating families.  One challenge is getting folks to come to market to pick them up, but with reminder texts, phone calls and eventually mailing vouchers, we had participation from 41 of 44 enrolled families in June.

The optional activities that are also part of the program have been quite successful.  They represent a lot of collaboration from college student interns and other community folks.   I enjoy my role as overall coordinator and participation in the different activities!

  • Farm tours–Four participating families toured a fruit and vegetable farm that sells at market.  It was very neat to hear the interactions between participants and the farmer–lots of questions, and folks even taught the farmer the value of his purslane “weed.”  We head to a beef farm next Sunday.
  • Gardening classes–Two sessions provided ideas and supplies for families who either have access to a garden or a place to put containers.
  • Photography project–Fourteen participants have attended meetings to learn about taking photos illustrating their families’ food-related experiences and bringing their photos together to share.
  • Cooking classes–Gettysburg College Campus Kitchen interns will lead a cooking class with seasonal produce this weekend for the first of these classes.
  • Kids’ Days at market–Despite heat, lots of families showed up at market for kids’ activities and a great scavenger hunt that had kids interacting with farmers about their work.
  • Health Fair at market–coming up this Friday.  I convinced a friend to make a smoothie bike, which we are thrilled to have make its public debut for the event! 🙂
  • “Chat with the RD” at market–It’s been a challenge to find ways to engage casual shoppers at more than a very surface level, but with free samples and recipes, there have been some great opportunities to share ideas with folks.

It’s hard to believe we’re nearing the end of July!   While the activities will be wrapping up in the next several weeks, folks will continue to receive vouchers through September.

Fair Share Project, Gettysburg, PA

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Hello!  I’m Audrey Hess in Gettysburg, PA.

I have been working gradually since the New Year on aspects of my Practicum as our Adams County Food Policy Council prepares for a second year of the “Fair Share Project.”  The program is designed to reach out to families who are in the “food gap”–above the SNAP cut-off yet with challenges in financially accessing adequate healthy foods.  For each of four months from June-September, the families receive $40 in vouchers for shopping at three local farmers’ markets.  Participants will choose from activities such as picking up nutrition information and talking with me at the farmers’ market, cooking or gardening classes, a farm tour, and participation in a photovoices project to share their food experiences with each other and hopefully in a community forum.

My current activites with the project are following-up with last year’s participants who are interested in returning, interacting with the community agencies that are providing new referrals for this year, and continuing to coordinate meetings every 2 or 3 weeks with our Fair Share advisory group.  A public health professor from Gettysburg College is taking the lead on development of our pre- and post-surveys as well as inspiring us in the development of the photovoices component.  I am priveleged to work with her as well as the various other members of the advisory group (community RD, CSA farmer,  Gettysburg College Center for Public Service staff and students and a local community health coalition executive director–my practicum supervisor).

Update on Chrissy’s Practicum!

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I’ve been working on my practicum since May. As I described in my initial post, May and June were filled with lots of logistical issues to tackle regarding food safety, scheduling, and selecting recipes.

We started attending the markets in late June, and had several “kick-off” events that we completed with key members of the community. We were lucky enough to work with the Mayor’s office to coordinate a joint kick-off event with the Mayor, the Department of Agriculture, WIC, and the Department of Transitional Assistance. The photo below is from the South Station farmers market in downtown Boston, and shows my coworker and I with Mayor Menino doing a food demo for “veggie salsa”. Here is a link to the news write-up about it on UMass Extension’s website! – http://www.umassextension.org/index.php/component/content/article/49/703-mayor-menino

For 6 weeks, we did awesome food demos at the markets. We provided samples for people which were prepared in a licensed kitchen ahead of time and kept under mechanical refrigeration, and provided copies of the recipe for people to take home. People were very receptive to this, and we ended up giving out between 60 and 112 samples & recipes at each market (we stayed 2-4 hours at each and 112 was the max our fridge held).

However, at the 6 week mark, our fridges started to fail and weren’t maintaining proper temperature. We have since been working with Inspectional Services on a new plan. Unfortunately, it has been really tough to find models that do keep temperature outside on hot summer days that are also light enough for staff to carry and small enough to fit in our cars.

We are still working to come up with a solution to this issue. However, in the meantime, we have been giving out healthy recipes which I selected from UMass Extension’s website (check out the recipe database here – http://www.umassextension.org/nutrition/index.php/publications/recipes/recipes), as well as handouts on nutrition education.

I’ve currently been working on developing/conducting evaluation, and will hopefully have some good information to share soon!