Day Tripping In South Carolina
Easy Ideas For Making Door Prizes
Food Myth–Veggies And Fruits From A Can Are Bad For You
Growing Tomatoes In Containers
Healthy Eating When Dining Out
Honey Bees And Beekeeping
How To Propagate Plants
Strategies For Relieving Stress
Turning Clutter Into Cash
Plus Information on the Guardian Ad Litem Info in South Carolina
STATE PROJECTS IN COMMON WITH NVON
CONTINUE OUR SUPPORT OF WATER AROUND THE WORLD
Water is an essential resource and fundamental building block of life. This project creates awareness of problems that arise when clean water is lacking and how we can help those in need around the world.
EAT LOCAL, EAT HEALTHY
This project emphasizes the local foods movement. Members may participate by shopping farmer’s markets, joining food co-ops, helping with school gardens, supporting community agriculture and planting a garden.
SMARTER LUNCHROOM PROJECT
The Smart Lunchrooms Movement began in 2009 in New York at Cornell University and has since grown and expanded to other states, including South Carolina. Dr. Brian Wansink at Cornell University’s Food and Brand Lab leads the Smart Lunchroom effort Nation-wide with the intent of gathering research on the Smart Lunchrooms program. In late 2010, Dr. Wansink and Dr. David partnered up to develop the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics in Child Nutrition Programs, also known as the B.E.N. Center. Through the B.E.N. Center and the research conducted at Cornell University, Drs. Wansink and David have succeeded in spreading the Smart Lunchrooms Movement to schools across the country.
The Smart Lunchrooms Movement’s mission is to improve the health of children by equipping school lunchrooms with the tools necessary to improve child-eating behaviors. The program’s core values include sustainability, promotion of healthful eating behaviors, focus on the environment of the lunchrooms, and low cost or no cost solutions.
The Smart Lunchroom Movement uses a self-assessment scorecard to evaluate the schools’ lunchrooms to make improvements in the areas needed. A pre-assessment is performed on each lunchroom using the Smart Lunchroom score card to set a baseline. This lets lunch room staff know where improvements are needed before a second Smart Lunchroom score card assessment is performed. To use the self-assessment scorecard, individuals must check the boxes to the left of the statements that completely reflect the school’s lunchroom environment. After checking all the boxes that are true for the lunchroom, the completed score cards may be dropped off with the school’s administrative assistant, who will then return it to SC Department of Education (SCDE). SCDE will total the score on each card – that number represents the baseline score for the lunchroom. The national average score for lunch rooms is between 30 and 50 points. The program is designed to have the score cards used annually to measure the lunchroom’s improvements.
We are asking for volunteers to assist us with the score card pre-assessment (one time per school) and possibly another assessment of the same school next year to document any improvements. All volunteers will be trained on how to use the score card before they are asked to go and use it. Additionally, we will encourage our volunteers to go into each school in pairs (2 people per group) because it is easier to make the observations with two people looking instead of one.
The Smart Lunchroom Movement has shown that simple, low cost environmental changes can be employed to sway food choices toward more healthy alternatives; however, additional information is needed to determine if these behavior changes remain over time and has the potential to have life-changing impact on the next generation.
Contact SCFCL President, Debbie Calcutt for more info about this project at: gardener@ftc-i.net