News Type: Program Highlights

Brighter Bites, Dallas ISD Partner with USDA Program

Posted on May 21, 2020 by -

Brighter Bites and Dallas ISD have joined forces to distribute fresh food to families through the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box program. The program was started by the USDA in April, during the height of the COVID-19 crisis, and aims to distribute fresh food to underserved families. The Dallas program includes distributions at schools, YMCAs, and other community organizations.

Currently the program includes weekly distributions every Thursday at Dallas ISD schools. Dallas ISD recently distributed a press release about its school outreach, which was picked up by Patch.com.

Brighter Bites Houston Provides 1.3 Million lbs Produce to 60,000 in April Alone

Posted on May 18, 2020 by -

 

 

Brighter Bites in Houston has been working six days per week with partners Houston Food Bank and YMCA of Greater Houston to provide fresh, immune-boosting produce to the communities in Houston that have needed it most during these recent challenging times.

According to Senior Program Director Mike Pomeroy,”In April alone we distributed nearly 1.3 million pounds of produce to approximately 60,000 families across the Greater Houston area thanks in large part to the produce supplied by the Houston Food Bank and the YMCA employees who helped us assemble produce bags and distribute them to members of the community. This has been an incredible effort by staff members of all our organizations.”

To see the distribution schedule for the remainder of May, click here.

Brighter Bites, Houston Food Bank, and YMCA sent a press release to the media before these numbers were known. The media covered the story in a variety of local Houston outlets:

Brighter Bites NYC and Partners Deliver Fresh Produce to Thousands in Queens

Posted on May 15, 2020 by -

 

Brighter Bites, along with Queens Together, The Connected Chef and City Harvest, have launched an emergency initiative aimed to ensure that current Brighter Bites’ Queens-area families continue to receive the produce they were receiving before COVID-19 impacted its community. This program includes door delivery service, which fills the communities’ needs without putting families at risk and disrupting their everyday routines.

This program made quite the splash in the local NYC media. The following organizations covered the story – hyperlinks embedded where available:

Distributions began on April 28 and will continue weekly as long as necessary. City Harvest has pledged 40,000 pounds of produce for distribution to families, including those in Jackson Heights, Woodside, Astoria, and East Elmhurst. All of these Queens neighborhoods have been especially hard hit during the pandemic.

“Brighter Bites NYC is incredibly proud to partner with these local New York organizations to distribute nutritious food to families suffering during this time,” said Melanie Button, Regional Program Director, Brighter Bites. “As an organization, we were adamant that school closures would not stop us from continuing to feed families but we knew that we would need to shift our model. We were impressed with what Queens Together was accomplishing and we reached out to see if they could support. They turned out to be the perfect partner to connect us with the right people and places to get this work done. That initial email sparked an incredible partnership and an amazing, community based, ground operation. Our work has been described as “grassroots but gargantuan” and we couldn’t agree more.”

Prior to the partnership, The Connected Chef served others in need in the community through their LifeLine delivery program. Their expertise in running the LifeLine program made them the perfect choice to execute a produce delivery program of this scale. The program will serve the 2,000 families who are enrolled in the Brighter Bites program at six schools in Queens. The program also aims to support the local economy, by re-employing chefs and cooks who have lost viable sources of food due to shortened hours and job losses to pack and deliver the produce.

Brighter Bites is a nonprofit with the mission of creating communities of health through fresh food. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, the organization served over 25,000 families nationwide enrolled in the program across 100 schools, with each family receiving 25 lbs. of fresh produce and nutrition education on a weekly basis. Then COVID-19 hit, schools shuttered, and families lost access to this fresh produce they were dependent on for daily nourishment.

“Queens Together is so pleased to be a part of this initiative,” said Jonathan Forgash of Queens Together. “We look forward to continuing this program and finding new ways to identify, package, and deliver nutritious food to those in desperate need across Queens.

 

COVID-19 Update from Brighter Bites

Posted on March 20, 2020 by -

 

Dear Friends,

We are all witnessing and living through one of the most challenging times in modern history.

Like all of you, Brighter Bites is adapting to the new reality brought on by the coronavirus outbreak.

Our number one priority is the health and well-being of our employees and the families and communities we serve. For that reason, we are following protocols to limit the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

 

 

Brighter Bites understands that families need fresh, nutrient-rich food to keep them healthy, and we are making every effort to find distribution mechanisms to ensure they receive it.

While the schools we partner with are closed, Brighter Bites is working with community stakeholders to develop alternative opportunities for distributing produce to families in the cities where we operate.

 

 

We are also working with our produce partner suppliers to redirect donated produce to our local food banks and working with our supply chain to help continue that process moving forward.When we aren’t able to distribute fresh produce, we are making nutrition education and healthy recipes available to our families electronically to help them make the most of the food they do have while they are at home with their children. You can access healthy recipes here and tips and tools for cooking at home here.

Here are some examples of how Brighter Bites is supporting our communities this week:

 

Our Southwest Florida team distributed fresh produce to more than 500 families at the Bethel Assembly of God in Immokalee, FL with the help of so many community partners. Harry Chapin Food Bank, Southern Specialties, Freedom Fresh, and B&W Quality Growers collectively donated 12 different produce items. The Blue Zones Project in SWFL donated reusable bags. Collier County Schools and the Benison Center made the event possible.

 

Staff and volunteers in Austin packed 830 bags of fresh fruits and vegetables for families whose children attend Cook, T.A. Brown, and Harris Elementary Schools in Austin ISD. Thanks to Hardie’s Fresh Food for their incredible support during this challenging time.

 

At PS 151Q in Woodside, Queens we provided 300+ Brighter Bites families and local community members with 4,586lbs of organic grapes, oranges, and pantry bags pre-packed by our incredible partners at City Harvest. 

 

We are living in a rapidly changing environment and in the coming weeks we’ll be making our best efforts to identify ways to regularly support our families with fresh, healthy foods and nutrition education alongside our local food banks and city partners. Above all else, the health and safety of our employees, families and communities will remain our focus.

Brighter Bites is grateful for the continued support and understanding from our families, partners, donors, supporters, and stakeholders. As uncertain as things are, we know we will get through this by working together.

We wish you and your family good health and safety as we navigate the coming weeks.

Yours sincerely,
The Brighter Bites Team

Brighter Bites in SW Florida is Making an Impact on Teachers and Instagram

Posted on February 17, 2020 by -

Michelle Rotunna at Parkside Elementary School in Naples, FL spoke with our team in SW Florida about the lifestyle shift she has made by increasing fresh food in her diet:

Throughout my life I have always had a weight problem, although over the past couple years I have truly turned my life around and gotten myself and family healthy and on track to living a better life. I believe that it is important to be able to nourish our bodies with healthy foods and be able to come up with creative ways to incorporate these foods into our daily diets. The Brighter Bites has been a blessing to our family and my students’ families. Having fresh produce in the house makes it easy to have a healthy snack instead of something unhealthy. I have also had the opportunity to help students grow in their understanding of what it means to stay healthy and eat healthy.

Share your stories about how fresh produce is making an impact on your life by emailing stefanie.cousins@brighterbites.org or nourishflourish@brighterbites.org,

Finally, our Southwest Florida program is also kicking off its own Instagram channel — with a photojournalist assigned to us for one full year, thanks to a grant from the Southwest Community Foundation.

 

 

 

Avocado Week Sponsored by Avocados From Mexico

Posted on February 14, 2020 by -


Over here at Brighter Bites we’re celebrating Avocado Week again thanks to the incredible support of Avocados From Mexico (AFM). This week we sent home 5,100 pounds of avocados grown in Mexico to 5,750 families in Houston, Dallas, and Austin, TX.

These families tasted our new avocado-filled Cauliflower Ceviche recipe, took home nutrition education information about avocados (created by AFM and Brighter Bites), and received 2-3 avocados donated by Henry Avocado in Houston and Mission Produce in Austin and Dallas. And thanks to Mann’s for donating cauliflower in Austin and Dallas for those families to make the Cauliflower Ceviche recipe they tasted at pick up. Brighter Bites is grateful to the generosity of these produce industry leaders for joining us in our mission to create communities of health through fresh food.

We’ll have more Avocado Weeks later this semester to ensure all 20,000+ Brighter Bites families in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Southwest Florida receive Mexican-grown avocados too.

 

 

Fall 2019 Semester in Review

Posted on December 18, 2019 by -

That’s a wrap!

Brighter Bites finished up our fall 2019 programming season after distributing an estimated 2.5 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables at 100 program sites nationwide! This semester, nearly 19,000 families and over 3,000 teachers participated in our six programs across the country, spanning Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, Washington, D.C., and Southwest Florida. Throughout the programming season, over 408,000 pieces of nutrition education (like handbooks, how-to produce guides, shopping and planning advice, healthy-eating tips and tricks, and recipes) made their way into the hands of thousands of participating families.

We can’t wait to come back next spring to continue creating communities of health through fresh food!

The Data Harvest, Vol. 3: Volunteers on View

Posted on December 9, 2019 by -

In this edition of The Data Harvest, we highlight one of the key pillars of our program: our incredible volunteer force.

At Brighter Bites, our volunteers come from both the families we serve and the wider community surrounding our schools. Brighter Bites often encourages parents (and little siblings!) to get involved at their students’ schools for the first time, with 71% of teachers in our program agreeing that Brighter Bites increased parent engagement at their school. We regularly surpass the goal of ten parent volunteers for every 150 bags packed, and for the 2018-2019 school year, we had over 3,350 unique parent volunteers for a total of over 36,000 volunteer hours at our 92 sites across the country!

Brighter Bites also invites local companies and organizations to support building communities of health through fresh produce. Last school year, over 250 community members volunteered for a total of over 500 hours at Brighter Bites sites nationwide.

Unified in our bright red t-shirts, Brighter Bites staff, parents, and community volunteers work together in assembly lines to divide produce into hundreds of bags. We couldn’t be more humbled by the dedication and joy they bring each week.

To find a Brighter Bites program and volunteer-opportunity near you, check out our volunteer page.

The Data Harvest, Vol. 2

Posted on November 10, 2019 by -

In this installment of The Data Harvest, we use data collected by Dr. Shreela Sharma and her research team to examine how Brighter Bites’ use of the Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) program paired with delivering produce to teachers’ classrooms is impacting not only the families we serve but also our students’ schools.

This school year, over 30,000 families in over 100 schools nationwide will participate in the Brighter Bites program, where they will also engage with the CATCH platform, a coordinated school and community approach to child health backed by 25 years of scientific evidence-based research. CATCH synthesizes the different factors working together in a child’s life, including school health education, community involvement, family engagement, physical environment, health services, and more, to improve the child’s overall health. Brighter Bites implements the CATCH program at each school in our Austin, Dallas, Houston, D.C., and New York locations to ensure students are properly educated on nutrition education and physical activity. In Southwest Florida, Brighter Bites partners with a similar coordinated school health program called YUM.

Our teachers reported a 70% success rate of CATCH implementation at their schools, and after the 2018-2019 school year, had led over 13,000 CATCH lessons and 36,000 produce activities. Rounded out with the 800 CATCH activities taught by P.E. coaches and 120 YUM activities in Florida, Brighter Bites students participated in a total of over 50,000 CATCH and YUM lessons nationwide!

We’re excited to report that not only is our program impacting the health of children and their families but also the health of our teachers, who receive two Brighter Bites bags full of eight to 12 different fresh produce items for their classroom each week. After using the produce for an in-class produce activity with their students, teachers subsequently get to take home their produce bags, and 86% of teachers reported that our program influenced their own intake of fruits and vegetables.

We think the data gathered by Dr. Shreela Sharma’s research platform speaks for itself! Keep an eye out for our next installment of The Data Harvest, which you can have delivered right to your inbox in our newsletter, The Brighter Byte.

 

 

The Data Harvest with Dr. Shreela Sharma, Vol. I

Posted on September 24, 2019 by -

One of the key ingredients to Brighter Bites’ ability to create a positive impact on our families’ health outcomes is our core identity as a theory-driven, evidence-based health promotion program. Since co-founding Brighter Bites in 2012, Dr. Shreela Sharma, Professor of Epidemiology at the UTHealth School of Public Health, has overseen the research platform that has allowed Brighter Bites to “critically assess program efficacy, while pushing the scientific dialogue forward to understand how to healthfully feed our families.”

We’ve collected some pretty impressive data over the past few years and look forward to keeping you up to date with more facts and figures that represent the impact we’re making on families around the country.

These are a few highlights of the data we’ve published in the past:

  • 98% of Brighter Bites parents report their children eating more fruits and vegetables while participating in the Brighter Bites program.
  • Of those, 74% said they maintained that increased level of consumption after Brighter Bites ended.
  • Two years after participating in the program, an average Brighter Bites family consumes 19 additional servings of fresh fruits and vegetables over one week.
  • Children who participate in Brighter Bites consume more fruits and vegetables served at school lunches than children who are not enrolled in Brighter Bites.
  • 69% of 704 teachers surveyed agree that Brighter Bites has increased parental engagement at their school.

Children and parents participating in Brighter Bites reported a:

  • significant increase in the amount of fruits and vegetables consumed;
  • significant increase in serving more fruits and vegetables as snacks;
  • two-fold increase in cooking meals from scratch, and a significant increase in eating meals together and serving more produce as part of those meals;
  • two-fold increase in using nutrition labels to guide grocery purchases;
  • and a significant decrease in added sugars consumed among children.

Dr. Sharma and her research team recently published an article in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior that looked at the impact of the Brighter Bites program on decreasing fruit and vegetable waste at school lunches among fourth and fifth grade children in Houston and Dallas. Compared with the children in the comparison group, those children receiving Brighter Bites showed a significant decrease in the amount of fruits and vegetables wasted at each meal. Here’s an article the team published in the journal Behavioral Sciences that looks at the design of that study, too.

To find out more about our ongoing research projects and read our published articles, check out the Research page of our website!