Former President Bill Clinton speaking at the Food Bank's 2009 Can-Do Awards Dinner; photo by Tran Dinh
Here at the Food Bank, we work to improve child nutrition because we know kids’ food choices can have lifelong health effects. Last week, at a press conference in Harlem, former President Bill Clinton said he learned that lesson the hard way.
We’re working to meet similar goals through programs like CookShop, which encourages the development of healthy diets among New York City students and their families, as well as community outreach and advocacy on issues like universal school meals.
With work like ours — and similar efforts from a dynamic duo like the former president and the current first lady — maybe we can protect more children from the outcomes of poor nutrition.
This January and February, the Food Bank held volunteer trainings for CookShop, our series of nutrition and health education programs for adults as well as elementary and high school students. We were able to successfully train more than 200 volunteers in three trainings – and that’s almost four times the number of volunteers we had last year!
After being trained, these volunteers will be placed in one of two programs, CookShop Classroom or CookShop For Adults.
Some of the things the volunteers learned in the training were proper knife skills, how to engage 5-7 year olds in nutrition education, how certain plants grow, how to purchase nutritious food on a sustainable income and even a surprisingly delicious recipe involving celery, carrots, orange juice and mustard!
By mid-February, our new CookShop volunteers will be helping teach low-income adults and children about nutrition and healthy living across all five boroughs.
By doing so, these volunteers are helping the Food Bank achieve a key element of ending food poverty – increasing the health of our city. New York City's low-income neighborhoods suffer from a high incidence of diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension – and CookShop is on the frontline of the Food Bank’s efforts to change this reality.
Part of the Food Bank’s suite of nutrition and health education programs, CookShop for Adults now aims to serve parents and guardians of the children who participate in CookShop Classroom. The new-and-improved course helps prepare adults with the information and resources they need to take the lessons their children learn at school and continue them right at their own kitchen tables.
The program works like this: participants meet for in-school workshops that complement the kids’ lessons on nutrition, food production and cooking. During the workshops, the adults learn healthy recipes, as well as nutrition-related topics including portion control, added sugars, food storage, reading food labels and making food substitutions.
In this way, we train participants to become nutrition educators for their loved ones, and provide them with the information and materials they need to conduct in-home workshops for their families.
When adults and kids are both excited about nutritious food and its benefits, the whole family will make a stronger commitment to healthy choices.
The Food Bank plans to feature CookShop for Adults participants here on Bank on It to give you a first-hand take of the effect of our new model…so stay tuned!
As I mentioned in my last letter here (A Year in Recession, Jan 15), 2009 was a hard year for the Food Bank For New York City and the New Yorkers we serve. While we anticipate that economic hardship will continue in 2010, as we look back at this past fall and early winter — our busiest time of year — all of us at the Food Bank are deeply inspired by how our supporters came together in these difficult times.
Our inspiration comes from the outpouring of support for the Food Bank’s 2009 NYC Goes Orange campaign, with more than 300 partners raising food, funds and public awareness for New Yorkers who struggle to get by. The season also saw the launch of the Adopt a Food Program initiative — a partnership between the Food Bank and Mayor Bloomberg’s NYC Service that will dramatically increase volunteer support across our food assistance network.
Also, we launched the 2009–2010 CookShop school year. These unique Food Bank programs bring nutrition education to elementary and high school students as well as adults, inspiring enthusiasm for healthy, affordable foods. [PLUS: Witness our health and nutrition education efforts first-hand in our CookShop video.] And the Food Bank’s 18th Annual Agency Conference brought together hundreds from the hunger relief community, along with elected officials to strategize and build strength for the coming year.
With 3.3 million New Yorkers currently experiencing difficulty affording the food they need, it is essential that we continue this momentum together. President Barack Obama has set a goal to end childhood hunger in America by 2015. We’re now five years from that target, and I invite you to invest in our future by helping us end food poverty.
In his State of the Union address last week, President Obama’s call to freeze federal discretionary spending raised alarms about the future of discretionary nutrition assistance programs, including certain components of The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). But the budget he released on Monday demonstrates his administration’s commitment to keeping food on the tables of America’s most vulnerable.
White House Photo, Pete Souza, 1/27/10
According to an analysis by the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC), the president’s budget would preserve $246.5 million for commodity purchases under TEFAP, as well as another $50 million for transportation and distribution costs.
The president has said he wants to end child hunger by 2015. The expansions he has proposed, particularly for child nutrition, are a promising step — especially in a budget that includes cuts — but achieving this goal will require far more.
Food Bank For New York City applauds President Obama for protecting these vital programs during a national fiscal crisis. It’s a good starting point for a strong Child Nutrition Reauthorization that includes Universal School Meals. And it sends the clear message that feeding people in need is especially important during hard times – a message we hope state and city leaders also hear and take to heart.
Comparing America to a “cash-strapped family,” President Obama announced a tightening of the federal money belt in his State of the Union Address this week.
“We will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don’t,” he said. “Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years.”
Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security won’t be affected, the president said — but all discretionary government programs could find their way to the chopping block. And if The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) is among the programs that land there, New York’s cash-strapped families will suffer.
Last year, TEFAP helped protect millions of struggling American families from hunger, distributing about $250 million in food to emergency food providers.
In New York City, 40 percent of families reported difficulty affording food last year. TEFAP — which received a major boost from the stimulus bill — was a key reason that figure was lower than the year before (48 percent).
Even with this temporarily increased help from TEFAP, more than half of our city’s food pantries and soup kitchens have reported running out of food or having to turn people away in recent years, unable to keep up with the dramatically increased demand.
Without TEFAP and other federal nutrition programs, even more families could face closed doors.
To be sure, the president’s speech wasn’t all doom and gloom for families in need.
His commitment to double the child care tax credit and to expand the tax credit for “those who start a nest egg” could free up families to spend more precious resources on food. The Food Bank’s Tax Assistance Program, which already helps thousands of New York City’s working poor access critical tax credits, will help many others achieve greater financial stability.
Low-income families could also achieve greater financial empowerment — the key to ending food poverty — through the president’s efforts to reduce the high cost of health care. In addition, First Lady Michelle Obama’s choice to spearhead the fight against childhood obesity could improve the health — and reduce health care costs — for millions of low-income children.
Although the president has said he hopes to end child hunger by 2015, that goal will never be reached without protecting critical food and nutrition programs. Tough choices lie ahead, but if we are to protect our country’s children and their struggling families, cutting these programs cannot be among them.
Last year the Obama administration made promising gestures toward improving child nutrition in America, including a proposal to add $1 billion to child nutrition programs.
But will these leanings lead to action? Tonight’s State of Union Address could offer a grim clue.
President Obama is expected to call for a three-year freeze on domestic programs. And with the Child Nutrition Act now up for reauthorization in Congress, some fear that the freeze could mean arresting the growth of critical programs feeding America’s hungriest children -- right when they are needed most.
With the economic crisis ongoing, families in New York and across the country are still reeling from lost jobs and slashed salaries, making nutritious food hard to afford.
The NYC Hunger Experience 2009 report, recently released by the Food Bank For New York City, found that almost half (47 percent) of households with children in New York City experienced difficulty buying needed food for themselves and their families last year.
A Child Nutrition Reauthorization that provides for Universal School Meals would ensure these children can count on at least one nutritious meal per day.
“Will a program created to 'promote the health and well-being of the nation's children' survive the freeze?” wrote Debra Eschmeyer, Food and Society Fellow at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade, in today’sHuffington Post. “Probably not, unless we, the voting public, find our voice and let our elected officials know that child nutrition in general -- and the National School Lunch Program in particular -- is a priority.”
What would you say to President Obama to convince him not to freeze funds for child nutrition programs? Share your thoughts!
As the Food Bank launched the CookShop Program’s 16th year this past fall, I was struck by how much the program has grown since a small team of dedicated staff at the Community Food Resource Center (CFRC), myself included, held the program’s first launch.
CFRC – which changed its name to FoodChange a few years before merging with the Food Bank – began a pilot program in 1994 under a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) competitive grants program that was looking for innovative ways to improve the nutritional intake of low-income populations. Initially called the Central Harlem Collaborative Nutrition Education Program, CookShop was one of only a handful of programs in the country that was funded through these grants.
The goal of the initial program was to increase schoolchildren’s consumption of nutritious food and to reach parents and others in the Central Harlem community through cooking workshops held at community organizations and housing projects. CFRC developed elementary-school curricula and teacher-training materials that focused on hands-on, food and nutrition activities for the classroom. After just one year in a few Central Harlem schools, it was clear to CFRC that the program had incredible potential to promote healthy eating in New York City’s low-income neighborhoods – areas that often suffer from a high incidence of diet-related diseases such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension.
As readers of this blog know, our elementary-school and adult programs are now known respectively as CookShop Classroom and CookShop for Adults. Additionally, CookShop has now expanded to include EATWISE, our CookShop Program for Teens.
And the biggest accomplishment? Altogether, the Food Bank’s CookShop Programs are expected to reach more than 14,000 children, teens and adults throughout the five boroughs this school year.
Longtime child nutrition advocate Agnes Molnar was Director of the Child Nutrition Unit at Community Food Resource Center (CFRC; later FoodChange) from 1981 to 2003, where her advocacy was instrumental in convincing the city to implement the first pilot Universal School Lunch program (using USDA’s Provision 2), to provide free school breakfasts to all public school students, and to expand the Summer Food Service Program to include city parks, swimming pools and public housing developments. Agnes designed and received USDA funding to implement the model nutrition education program for food stamp-eligible populations that evolved into CookShop. As co-founder of Community Food Advocates, Agnes is now working on a campaign to make school meals free to all New York City public school students.
Here are a few things that we’ve been reading around the office recently. Are there any stories you’d like to share? Leave a link in the comments!
The USDA projects free and reduced price lunches to reach a 41-year high for the 2009–10 school year, McClatchy reports.
Daily Dish, the LA Times food blog, writes about Food Bank partner Whole Foods and the “Renegade Lunch Lady” teaming up to help improve the quality of school lunches.
In the New York Times Magazine, David Leonhart discusses the policy implications of approaching obesity as a serious health risk like smoking. While we certainly don’t condone any form of employment discrimination — one rather extreme example — the article provides an outline for how to reshape the fight against obesity.
In an NPR story about migrant children’s health in China, they explore healthy eating in schools as a tool to better not only physical health, but also school performance.
With the beginning of the school year quickly approaching, the Food Bank For New York City has begun a pilot program to solicit and accept donations of school supplies. The school supplies will be distributed to elementary-school age children through the food programs in our citywide network.
Recently, Target stepped up and donated a $1,000 gift card for the purchase of school supplies. So, the other week, I made the trip out to the Target in College Point, Queens. After locating our most requested item, I loaded my first red shopping cart with 225 twelve-packs of crisp, new #2 pencils.
While filling my second and third shopping carts with 450 composition notebooks, 225 packs of crayons, and handfuls of erasers and rulers, shoppers began to notice what must have seemed to them the absurdly large quantity of school supplies I was removing from the bins and shelves. With curious looks, a few shoppers asked me why I was taking so many supplies. I explained Target’s generous donation and the Food Bank’s plan to distribute the supplies to families visiting our network programs.
The shoppers’ responses were very supportive and appreciative, as many acknowledged that children need these supplies to succeed in school. Two shoppers I spoke with happened to be school teachers — who confirmed the need for the supplies I was loading into the carts. A testament to this need, these teachers were actually there to pick up miscellaneous supplies to keep in their desks for students who might not have any — most likely making the purchases out of their own pockets.
Special thanks to Target manager Hamid Tabibzada and his friendly staff — especially Melissa, who helped me navigate the four shopping carts of supplies through the store. Thanks to Target’s donation we were able to distribute supplies to 225 young students! What a great way to begin the school year.
Kate Hindin, This Is Your Life
Kate Hindin said: Thank you Daniel for this wonderful homage! I will always cherish my time at the Food Bank. I got to...
[More]
A Taste of Tennis
San Antonio Tennis Lessons said: Wow great food and a a great sport, what more could you ask for?
[More]
Part of the Food Bank’s suite of 
Comparing America to a “cash-strapped family,” President Obama announced a tightening of the federal money belt in his 
absurdly large quantity of school supplies I was removing from the bins and shelves. With curious looks, a few shoppers asked me why I was taking so many supplies. I explained Target’s generous donation and the Food Bank’s plan to distribute the supplies to families visiting our network programs.
