The School District of Palm Beach County, Florida - Other School Department Based Activities
Celebrating 10 Years Of Wellness
Palm Beach County Food Bank
Palm Beach County is the richest agricultural community east of the Mississippi, producing over 30 seasonal crops and 20 tropical fruits. Focus group research and local experience indicate that many residents in food insecure pockets of the community cannot identify what others may consider familiar produce and also lack access. Through Nutrition Driven, individuals responsible for feeding their families are introduced to and are provided with Florida’s locally grown produce, educated on the nutritional value of the food, instructed on how to prepare it, how to store it safely and how it can be purchased for the best value. Nutrition Driven equips individuals who lack access and financial resources with the tools to make healthier decisions for their families. Nutrition Driven delivers demonstrated success for improving health outcomes for at-risk populations and underserved communities in Palm Beach County and teaches concepts that can be shared with their families to help create positive lasting change for future Floridians.
Food Recovery and Distribution
Food Recovery & Distribution
Inlet Grove High School Culinary Program participates in the Food Recovery & Distribution program at the Palm Beach County Food Bank. They collect fresh produce from us and use the product to create different recipes and meals that are then shared with some of the students in the school. This program serves not only as an educational component for the students creating and preparing the meals, but some of their peers also get to taste the finished product and are able to try fresh and local varieties of produce, some for the very first time.
Inlet Grove participates year round while a handful of other culinary programs participate on a seasonal basis. There is no data collected for this program, however, please see included photos for some of the meals created.
Quote from Teacher:
Tammy Johnson Newman – “We gave cucumber samples..then pickles..students did not know that pickles are cucumbers!!!! With all the shipment..we did compare and contrasting tasting....so cool..students could not believe that the cucumber raw becomes a pickle!!”
Nutrition Driven
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PBCFB - Nutrition Driven
The Palm Beach County Food Bank’s Nutrition Driven program serves the Palm Beach County community through an educational mobile food pantry that distributes fresh and healthy food with essential core nutritional concepts through an 8-module evidence-based program series.
This program is delivered in partnership with the Palm Beach County Cooperative Extension - University of Florida/Institute of Food and Agriculture Sciences Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP). Together, Nutrition Driven teaches program participants about core nutritional values, food safety and preparation, simple recipes, and smart shopping tips.
To date, the program has been delivered to 37 different sites with 646 graduates. Nutrition Driven has distributed over 65,000 pounds of fresh food equating to approximately 54,000 meals.
Nutrition Driven has partnered with 12 different programs hosted through PBCSD, graduating 221 parents. While this is an adult-based curriculum, the program focuses on behavioral practices that the parents can share with their children to positively influence their behaviors. While the below chart reflects the sites that have completed the program, PBCSD has four programs scheduled, two in Fall term and two in Winter term.
Food4OurKids
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Food4OurKids
The Palm Beach County School District (PBCSD) has 21 different sites, 10 of which are Head Start programs, which participate in the summer component of the Palm Beach County Food Bank’s (PBCFB) weekend feeding program, Food4OurKids. The summer sites pick up a variety of shelf-stable products each Monday for 9 weeks and then distribute the food in backpacks for the children to take home and share with their families. In the summer of 2016, a total of 2,500 children were served across 32 different summer sites in Palm Beach County. Over 65% of the organizations that the PBCFB partnered with were from PBCSD.
This Fall 2016, the PBCFB is also partnering with two aftercare sites, Palm Springs Elementary and Rolling Green Elementary, to participate in the first year of our school-year component to Food4OurKids to also meet the need of the children facing food insecurity over the weekend, but during the school year. The children will receive six meals to help alleviate the gap that children may face over the weekend. This fall, PBCFB is expected to serve approximately 200 children.
