Healthy Returns
Healthy Returns brings healthy meals and snacks to agencies serving low-income children and at-risk youth throughout the Washington DC area. The program gives priority to agencies that focus on empowering life-skills including mentoring, apprenticeship, continuing education, counseling, nutrition and health education as well as job readiness skills.
In addition to healthy food, the program provides nutritional education. Through interactive and fun lessons, children are taught the skills that will enable them to make healthy food choices throughout their lives.
In 2007, Healthy Returns partnered with approximately 40 agencies to serve over 1100 children snacks and meals. Agencies are able to take money that would have been spent on food and put it towards their programs, enabling them to buy the supplies and equipment to provide a more innovative curriculum.
Providing snacks and meals also plays a role in increasing attention span and reducing behavioural problems associated with hunger. Since partnering with Healthy Returns, many agencies have reported an increase in attendance and higher retention rates. Healthy snacks allow children to fully participate without being distracted by hunger.
The Healthy Returns program also offers nutrition education opportunities to adults within the community. They can then take the information they learn and spread it to their children. We teach skills such as reading nutrition labels, purchasing nutritionally sound food on a small budget, and planning diets for various chronic diseases. Participants are given examples of healthy recipes and have a chance to take part in cooking demonstrations.
Healthy Returns benefits all those who are involved. The partner agencies are able to focus their expenses on their programming rather than on food. Parents have the assurance that their children are in positive and enriching after-school environments, and that they will not go hungry. Parents themselves have access to nutritional education and counseling. Most importantly, children are learning the value of a healthy diet from a young age.
For more information on receiving snacks or nutrition education please contact the Healthy Returns Coordinator at healthyreturns@dccentralkitchen.org or 202 234 0707 ext 115.
