- Author: Kelly Hong
- Author: Shannon A Klisch
The 4-H Student Nutrition Advisory Council (SNAC) club at Rice Elementary returned to in-person meetings this year for the first time since March 2020. 4-H SNAC is a collaboration between UC Cooperative Extension programs (CalFresh Healthy Living and 4-H) and local schools and provides 4th - 6th graders opportunity to build leadership skills and create healthy changes in their community.
Student leaders were excited to join the club this year and promote healthy living at a school-wide Family Wellness Night event, where families were invited to learn about community resources and healthy living tips. 4-H SNAC youth leaders worked together to decide which topics they wanted to promote. Ultimately they voted to host two booths including 1) a garden station where students demonstrated how to plant tomato and pepper plants and provided information on how to grow food at home, and 2) a hydration station with a spin-the-wheel game where students leaders engaged families in physical activity and shared how to make fruit infused waters to reduce their consumption of sugary beverages.
Leading up to the event youth learned about the importance of nutrition, gardening, and physical activity and the role they play in living a healthy lifestyle from the club facilitator. During club meetings, they practiced making group decisions following Parliamentary Procedure, making healthy recipes, maintaining their school garden, and playing games that focused on being physically active. Family Wellness Night was a culmination of the 4-H SNAC youth leaders' hard work where they were able to showcase all their new skills to be agents for change in their community. As a result, students reported that the best part of participating as a youth leader in this program included making food and learning how to make the world a healthier place, getting to work as a team, teaching others, and promoting healthy living at Family Wellness Night.
More information on starting a 4-H SNAC Club in your community can be found in our recently published 4-H SNAC Guide.
Funding support provided by USDA NIFA, CYFAR
California's CalFresh Healthy Living, with funding from the United States Department of Agriculture's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – USDA SNAP, produced this material. These institutions are equal opportunity providers and employers. For important nutrition information, visit www.CalFreshHealthyLiving.org.
This institution is an equal opportunity provider. Full FNS Nondiscrimination Statement.
- Author: Mishelle Julianne Costa
The CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE (CFHL,UCCE) program works with low-income schools, communities, and youth serving organizations in northern Santa Barbara County to provide nutrition education, food security, physical activity, and positive youth development programming.
In March, CFHL, UCCE staff connected with families at Hapgood Elementary through virtual Family Cook Nights in English and Spanish. Families learned techniques for involving kids in the kitchen, food safety skills, and had the opportunity to prepare healthy meals together. Hapgood Elementary Student leaders showcased their leadership and presentation skills by conducting two of the four virtual recipe demonstrations to participants. Efforts to improve nutrition and culinary skills with youth and families promotes ANR's public value of promoting healthy people and communities.
Quotes from families: "muy buena informacion y recordatorio en la importancia de involucrar a nuestros ninos en la preparacion de comidas". Very good information (and good reminder) on the importance of involving our children in meal preparation.
"me encanto la informacion que nos dieron sobre la seguridad de los alimentos, y como leer la etiqueta de nutricion". I loved the information provided about food safety, and how to read the nutrition label.
- Author: Shannon Ad Klisch
In the last 12 months, have you ever:
- worried that your food would run out before you got money to buy more?
- been unable to afford balanced meals?
- cut the size of your meals or skipped meals because there wasn't enough money for food?
- lost weight because there wasn't enough money for food?
- relied on only a few kinds of low-cost foods to feed your children because there wasn't enough money for food?
- been unable to feed your children a balanced meal because you couldn't afford it?
If you answered yes to more than three of these, then you are likely among the 17 million American households (12.8% of us) who have experienced food insecurity. This is only a sample of the ten to 18 questions that the USDA uses to track and monitor household food security every year and to rate the level of food security based on participant households' responses from food secure to very low food security depending on the number of affirmative answers provided.
During the pandemic and in the years leading up to it, the rate of overall food insecurity stayed relatively stable. This seems surprising, that as millions of Americans lost their jobs and suffered from negative health consequences, food security remained flat. Only recently have we started to see the upward trend in food insecurity return.
In their 2023 report, the USDA Economic Research Service notes that food insecurity increased in 2022 across all subpopulations and was significantly higher than the 10.2% prevalence of food insecurity recorded in 2021.
Why didn't food insecurity increase during the COVID-19 pandemic? Why is it increasing now?
Perhaps, policy actions to support low-income households helped:
- In a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Report (Aug 2022), researchers estimate that SNAP emergency allotments (a temporary increase in benefits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic among participating states which ended in the February 2023 issuance) “kept 4.2 million people out of poverty in the fourth quarter of 2021, reducing poverty by 9.6 percent in states with emergency allotments, relative to a scenario in which emergency allotments were eliminated. Child poverty was reduced by 14.0 percent in states with emergency allotments and was reduced most among Black, non Hispanic children, falling by 18.4 percent.”
- In another study (June 2022) researchers found that a 15% increase in SNAP benefits, enacted in January 2021, reduced instances of food insufficiency during the pandemic and also reduced food pantry visits (Bryant and Follett, 2022)
- In one nationally representative study (Dec 2023) of SNAP-participating households, discontinuation of SNAP emergency allotment benefits was significantly associated with increased food insufficiency.
- In a cross-sectional study (June 2023) of US respondents to the Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey, analyses showed that ending emergency allotments was associated with significantly higher overall food insufficiency and child food insufficiency.
SNAP Emergency Allotments were implemented in response to the pandemic. Following their expiration, the average SNAP participant was expected to receive about $90 less in benefits per month (Rosenbaum et al. 2023).
Perhaps this is telling us that, where there is a will to end food insecurity and hunger, there is a way.
See a local story about hunger in the Tribune Dec 7, 2023: https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/article282183253.html
- Author: Mishelle Julianne Costa
- Author: Maria E Murrietta
- Author: Shannon Ad Klisch
This summer three UCCE programs including CalFresh Healthy Living, Master Food Preservers, and Master Gardeners collaborated with local libraries to teach nutrition, gardening, and food preservation skills to families through the Lompoc Library “Learn and Grow” series and the Santa Maria Teens Club. These three UCCE programs cover community education topics from the garden (Master Gardeners) to pantry (Master Food Preservers) to plate (CalFresh Healthy Living). By bringing the three programs together there is potential to enhance learning and promote community health.
In Lompoc, more than 18 families participated in three, 90-minute sessions learning about growing food and preparing healthy recipes such as trail mix, limeade, and developing food preservation techniques by making refrigerator pickles.
In Santa Maria, the UC Master Food Preservers held a series of workshops for the Santa Maria Library Teens Club. In total, 75 teens learned about fermentation through making quick kimchi, and got to practice using an atmospheric steam canner to make Thai dipping sauce and chutney. UC Master Food Preservers also participated in Family Storytime about pizza and tacos at the Santa Maria Library where they demonstrated how to use the atmospheric steam canner to make salsa and 12 families took home food safety handouts and recipe cards.
Increasing knowledge and skills around growing and preserving food and eating healthy has been shown to improve community health and wellness.
Families provided positive feedback with one community member stating: “What a fantastic lesson for children to learn, and great literacy to introduce as well.”
"Thank you very much, my girl had a lot of fun and great activities. She was very happy" -Parent
Looking ahead, CalFresh Healthy Living, UCCE is back in the classroom for the new school year, partnering with teachers, food service staff, students, and families to teach nutrition, gardening, and promote healthy communities. Meanwhile, UC Master Food Preservers are in the middle of training a new cohort of volunteers in research-based practices of safe home food preservation.