Crisp Family Connection Serves Up a Tasty Lesson in Health to Local Families

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by Sherry Evans

Crisp Family Connection helped children and families in the community make healthy choices—while giving their taste buds a treat—through Tasty Success, a food forum program for family engagement and learning.

Tasty Success is a curriculum based on language nutrition and literacy, healthy eating, meal planning, and sensory art. Families are also linked to local, state, and federal nutrition service providers and other resources related to nutrition.

The March Tasty Success program was about healthy spaghetti and salad. Participants learned how to make a dinner for the whole family in under 30 minutes with leftovers, while children painted with spaghetti noodles to experience sensory art, while learning about colorful fruits and vegetables that are good for them.

UGA Extension Services kicked off the event by sharing nutrition-related resources available through SNAP, and a Family and Consumer Science (FACS) agent followed by giving a healthy food demonstration. Families learned why whole grain is a healthy choice and how to prepare a nutritious spaghetti sauce.

Each child received Olivia Cooks Up a Surprise, a book about Healthy Eating from Crisp County Family Connection and parents received language nutrition curriculum.

The Tasty Success program is a part of the Collaborative’s Early Childhood Development and Health Education cohort, established to create the conditions necessary for every child in Crisp County to become a proficient reader by the end of third grade.

This Crisp Family Connection collaboration was funded in part by Get Georgia Reading Campaign partners, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, the Annie Casey Foundation, and the Rural Child Poverty Nutrition Center, and a partnership between FirstBook and the Newman’s Own Foundation provided the books. Lead partner UGA Extension Services’ Family and Consumer Science agent coordinated the event, which Cordele Housing Authority, the Crisp Area Arts Alliance, and volunteers from the community helped make a success.

The next Tasty Success event is scheduled for April 26 and will be offered at Sunset Homes at 6 p.m. Call Crisp Family Connection Executive Director Sherry Evans at 229-276-2612 or email her at crispfamilyconnection@gmail.com for details.