Fueling up for Fall in the Metroplex

After an un-beet-lievable summer, Brighter Bites Dallas is gearing up for an exciting fall! We are thrilled to partner with 15 Dallas area elementary schools: 12 in the Dallas Independent School District and three in Uplift Education. Over the next semester, we expect to serve 3,000 individual families (~500 more than last fall), distributing approximately 720,000 pounds of produce and thousands of healthy tip sheets, nutrition handbooks, recipe cards, and tasty samples! Our staff has been busy developing several new recipes in our test kitchen for students and their families to taste at pick up and make at home. We think the “Better with Thyme” Green Bean Salad is going to be a surprise hit!

Over the last few weeks, the Brighter Bites Dallas team has been presenting to school staff and administrators about the Brighter Bites program and the educational tools we use to create communities of health through fresh food and nutrition education. This school year Brighter Bites will provide even more coordinated school health resources to schools than last year by encouraging them to increase the number of CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health) curriculum lessons taught in the classroom and recommending teachers use the produce from their own Brighter Bites bags as an educational tool. Because teachers are powerful role models for students, their focus on empowering children to make better eating choices will further support our program’s desire to turn their elementary schools into communities of health.