Chef Ann Foundation Grants Fund Nutrition Education Program in Schools

Through a generous donation from the Walmart Foundation, 100 schools will get the chance to learn about nutrition and healthy eating habits through a program called Project Produce: Fruit and Veggie Grants for Schools. Chef Ann Foundation (CAF), an organization dedicated to improving school food in America, operates the grant program to help schools increase kids' access to fresh fruits and vegetables and provide nutrition education through fun lunchroom learning activities.

"Nutrition education programming is key to children's healthy eating," says Mara Fleishman, Chef Ann Foundation's CEO. "And in a nation where childhood obesity and diet-related disease are common realities for many young Americans, this grant opportunity could not come at a more opportune time." 

One in three children in this country are either overweight or obese, and this generation of kids is predicted to die at younger ages than their parents due to diet-related disease. According to the CDC, from 2007-2010 60 percent of children didn't eat enough fruit to meet daily recommendations, and 93 percent didn't eat enough vegetables. 

Over 30 million children eat school lunch each day, and 71.5 percent of them come from disadvantaged households. Healthy food at school significantly impacts children's access to nutritious food, especially those who qualify for free and reduced priced school meals. Nutrition education that includes samplings of fresh fruits and vegetables helps kids accept and enjoy the foods that are key for good health.

"Grants like this really help support doing something different, and forced us to think outside the box," says Shelly Allen, food service director from St. Vrain Valley School District in Longmont, Colo. "Project Produce gave us the opportunity to have meaningful food experiences with kids and allowed food service to become an extension to education." 

St. Vrain Valley School District  received their Project Produce funds in 2014. To date, Project Produce has helped 41 schools purchase fresh produce for their nutrition education efforts, helping 21,399 students learn to not only eat their fruits and veggies, but to like them.