Author: feedthedesertksu

Helping the Hunger

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Having access to fresh foods should just be a given, right? For lots of communities across the country, that might not be the case. Being in a food desert makes it hard for people to get fresh and nutritious foods for themselves and their families.

Schools also have the same burden upon them since they need to give their students good, nutritious meals so they can have full bellies and a “craving” to learn. In this post, we’re going to highlight what the city of Courtland, Kansas can do to help their community thrive in their food desert.

 

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We visited Pike Valley Elementary and Junior High in Courtland, Kansas. This school participates in the Backpack program, a privately funded program that delivers food weekly so that on the weekends they can send their students home with healthy snacks. (check out Hungry Heartland for more information on the Backpack Program.) 

They also partner with their local depot to have fresh foods for their students’ meals.

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So, we have a few ideas that could help the families of Courtland:

  • Start a after recess snack program
  • Start a nutrition, healthy eating and cooking class for students and their families in the Pike Valley school district.

After recess snack program:

This program would be entirely run by donations. The school would host several food drives at throughout the year encouraging community members and farmers to donate healthy snacks to the district.

Ideally, there will be a food drive every eight weeks, one donation event for each quarter of the school year. Donations will be accepted at all times but special events will be held to promote awareness of the program.

If the students are receiving a snack after lunch and before they leave school, it will help hold over their appetite and hopefully deter them from eating a sugary, processed snack instead. Over the school year, the goal would be to get students to develop healthy eating and snacking habits. Grabbing an apple or an orange instead or a granola bar or mini donuts is the mindset that children should inhabit after learning ideal eating habits.

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Nutrition, healthy eating and cooking class

This purpose of this program would be to educate students and families of Pike Valley of the resources available to them to help obtain healthy, fresh foods.

Monthly classes will be held and open to all families of the district. In these classes not only will available resources be of discussion, quick and easy recipes will be given out, and educational blurbs about healthy eating habits.

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Ideally, the family and consumer science department would be the directors of this program. Schools use their teachers as coaches, this could be another way of getting teachers involved in the school outside of the classroom and athletics.

We also want to incorporate local farmers and grocers into these classes to promote families being able to give back to their community’s economy. Farmers could donate their produce to cook with during the classes and teach families how to preserve and prepare their food.

Grocers can give tours of their stores and have presentations on the benefits of eating healthy. These classes will show families how to make the most out of their resources and show them the positive effects of developing healthy eating programs.

The main goal of these ideas would mostly to educate the district about the insecurities that fall into food deserts. We want the students, parents and siblings to know that there are resources to be utilized to help curve malnourishment and the other effects of food deserts.

 

You get involved!

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Advocating for food deserts and those who are affected by them is of importance to us because we have learned first hand what it is like to not have access to fresh healthy foods.

Here are some ideas for you to get involved in your community:

  • Donate to fresh foods to your local schools
  • Volunteer at a local food bank

 

While you’re out there in the world, ending the food desert crisis, check out these neat resources:

Hungry Heartland

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Kids who face malnourishment are often less equipped to succeed compared to others. Hunger can be found in all communities across the world, but we’re bringing awareness to communities in small town Kansas.

Kids who aren’t receiving the nutrients they need are taking the hit cognitively and physically.  It can even affect the child’s ability to learn.

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Food deserts are a rising issue in many communities across the state of Kansas.

Belonging in a community that is affected by a food desert doesn’t necessarily mean that you are hungry: it means you are living in an area that you live in an are that makes it difficult to buy affordable or good-quality fresh food.

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Mike Gritten has been the Principal of Pike Valley Elementary and Junior High School for ten years. Gritten was raised in the Pike Valley area.

“I grew up pretty poor. I mean when I was a kid you had those punch cards and you could always tell who were the free and full paid kids because they were different colors. So sometimes you would want to hide your punch card, but here you can’t tell who is free and who is reduced.”

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Gritten spoke with us about how living in a food desert affects students in his district and what his schools are doing to help the students get the nutrients they need.

The local Depot is a source of food for Pike Valley Schools, “the owner’s kids went to school, so they offer their services by donating fruits and vegetables,” said Gritten. “The Pike Valley producers was started by a guy named Mark Reed, who wanted to give our kids local quality meat, whether that’s beef, pork, chicken.”

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“It’s important for them to get a meal here. We work with the Pike Valley producers to get local grown meats, whether that pork or beef,” said Gritten.

Pike Valley is a school that uses the local economy. Getting produce and meats from local farmers helps the Pike Valley community. “We are actually about ready to get chicken. We do order some meats from some local vendors. As for our vegetables and fruits, some of them are canned and some of them are locally grown.”

“Besides lunch, we serve breakfast as well,” Gritten said. This helps students curve their hunger before they step foot into the classroom.

Not all students at Pike Valley eat lunch provided by the school, some prefer to pack their own lunch from home.

“It’s all about preference,” said Gritten.

There are children at Pike Valley where their school lunch is the only wholesome meal students eat all day.  Gritten spoke with us, “as for this [lunch] being a child’s main meal, I’d say about at least 20 percent or better out of all of our kids.”

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Besides working to get a good lunch on the table for kids, Pike Valley has initiated work with the Backpack Program. “The Backpack Program is a free program.”

“I know that somebody pays for it, but for schools it’s a free program,” Gritten said.

The Backpack program is a privately funded program.

“The reason it is not stated funded is because some of the nutrition on some of those cans aren’t quite what the state wants. There is no need to heat up things. It’s just open and eat, so it’s a good blessing for our kids. They can take advantage of it.”

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The department that delivers to Pike Valley is based out of Wichita, Kansas. “They come up about once a month to deliver,” Gritten said.

We have some more ideas of what can be done to help, check out our next post for some solutions to help mend food deserts.

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