'Healthy Eating Helping Hands' new program combating food insecurity in Enterprise School District – KRCR

“Health Eating Helping Hands” is a new program that will be launching to help tackle food insecurity in the Enterprise School District.

This program includes a little, free pantry put together by the Cal-Fresh Health Living Program through Northern Valley Catholic Social Services (NVCSS).

A training event was held on Friday for staff, program directors and educators at the NVCSS location.

Enterprise School District’s Communications Coordinator, Matthew Baker, says the widespread issue, throughout the district, is food insecurity.

“One in four students in our district struggle with food insecurity at some level, and so it’s definitely not something that’s just a few kids,” Baker told The Northstate’s News. “It’s a real problem that, as a district and as a community, I think we have a real responsibility to try to fix.”

NVCSS officials say junk food lowers kids’ attention spans and increases behavioral problems. To combat those issues, NVCSS Assistant Director of Outreach and Education, Tenneal Bringle, says the program will promote health eating by providing ready-made meals for students in need.

“We are interested in seeing that, if we feed kids health foods over the weekend, how that behavior will change; that they calm down and they will be ready to learn,” Bringle said.

One of the attendees, Boulder Creek Elementary Resource Education Specialist Michelle Shortridge explained how upsetting it is to witness her students studdle in the classroom due to malnourishment.

“It’s really heartbreaking,” Shortridge told the Northstate’s News. “Especially when you’re trying to teach them and get through the school day, and they are just struggle to stay awake and they are focusing on being hungry and when they are going to eat next.”

A unique part of the program, Baker says, is a collaborative effort by the community. “This is an initiative that was not just done by the district, and something done just for our schools, but many members of the community coming together to make this happen,” Baker said.

“Building empathy at the same time as building real-life skills, in terms of kitchen safety and awareness of health, and where the food comes from. All of these things are huge benefits that are being gained, while also addressing a real issue.”

The NVCSS says they are looking for “Healthy Eating” and “Helping Hands” champions, which will be provided a gift card for the time and effort in teaching students, promoting the club and distributing food to referred students. Participating students will kitchen-safety, trauma-informed nutrition education, cooking, sustainability and an opportunity to be a part of the solution to food insecurity.

The goal is to have all nine low-income schools receive the benefits of this program, as well as remove the burden of parents having to decide between buying groceries or paying rent.

The benefits of having the little free pantry is to be able to store food donations from students, school share bins, and community donors, then pass the donations on to students in the school who are at risk of food insecurity.

The most important things the program needs is volunteers, food donations and funding in order for it to be successful and grow.

To help with that there are incentives for volunteer participation:

• Healthy Eating Helping Hands Champions
• Pantry Managers
• Servsafe Certification: $25 SafeServe
• Classroom Management Course: $25
• Eatfresh.org: $25 EatFresh MiniCourse
• Leah’s Pantry Trauma informed training:$50

If you want to volunteer or donate you can contact Tenneal Bringle at (530) 247-3384 or at her email tbringle@nvcss.org.