Brighter Bites in Austin, TX
Since the summer of 2015, Brighter Bites has been hard at work creating communities of health in Austin, TX, the third city introduced to our research-backed formula of produce distribution, nutrition education, and a fun food experience. We started out our program in 10 South Austin schools and currently serve 2,400 families in 12 schools. We’re excited to be expanding our program to 15 schools in North Austin this coming fall!
Fitting with the start-up culture of Austin, the Austin programming team has fearlessly piloted new Brighter Bites strategies and experimented with new ways of thinking about our model to improve various components of the programming experience. The team, led by Program Director Maggie Mangrum, has incubated an innovative culture, using each semester and school year as an opportunity to improve our connection to our families and enhance our community impact. The team is small and accomplishes a lot! You can meet the fantastic ladies behind Brighter Bites Austin here.
Brighter Bites Austin staff members pose amongst bags full of produce
We count ourselves lucky to operate in the Austin Independent School District (AISD), which has adopted a progressive health and wellness curriculum. AISD’s Nutrition Services Department is creative, health focused, and sustainability driven, and communicates messaging about health throughout the school year even after our program season ends.
Our primary partners in Austin are Hardie’s Fresh Foods and FreshPoint South Texas. You can learn how each contributes to our program here. Their partnership has helped us expand to new communities in North and East Austin.
Students prepared a special thank you to our partner Hardie’s Fresh Foods
The move to these new Austin communities has required us to build relationships with local neighborhoods so that we can develop the trust, credibility, and commitment necessary for our program to thrive. The staff, parents, and community members of the schools where we operate always go above and beyond to welcome us into their schools and give us the volunteer and in-class support the program needs. We could never pull off our program without them. You can read about a few of our volunteer and staff superstars here.
A mom and her daughter celebrate a successful season of volunteering with Brighter Bites!
The Brighter Bites Austin team has so much fun sharing office space with our friends at Farmhouse Delivery, a sustainability-focused and community-centered company that provides local produce and grocery delivery and a fantastic meal kit service. Our team began renting office and kitchen space from Farmhouse Delivery in August 2017, and we love our little nook in the main office area, where we get to interact with the kind and inclusive Farmhouse Delivery staff every day.
The Brighter Bites Austin office space at Farmhouse Delivery
Farmhouse is always offering us delicious samples of the recipes they send to the customers of Farmhouse meal kits and have donated produce to our weekly recipe prep.
The Brighter Bites team poses with some of our Farmhouse Delivery friends in the Farmhouse kitchen.
We whip up our fun food experience snack samples in the Farmhouse Delivery commercial kitchen, where we’ve become fast friends with the kitchen and warehouse staff. This past winter, Farmhouse’s Warehouse Manager Manny Moreno packaged bundles of Farmhouse’s fresh fruit and vegetables to give to a music class from one of our elementary schools, which came to the Farmhouse warehouse to sing holiday carols. We’re so lucky to work next to such a warm and welcoming company and team.
Brighter Bites staff and volunteers engage students in our ‘Fun Food Experience’
You can find Brighter Bites this summer at six Austin locations: Turner Roberts Rec Center, Gus Garcia Rec Center, Forbes CDC, Andy Roddick Foundation’s Summer Learning Programs at Harris Elementary and at Hart Elementary, and Wooten Elementary’s ACE program. Find out how you can volunteer with Brighter Bites here.
Special thanks to Program Director Maggie Mangrum and Program Manager Bethany Dawson for their contributions to this article.