Houston Highlights from the Summer Season

Brighter Bites is wrapping up its fourth summer of programming in Houston next week and the team painted the city with loads of colorful produce, returning to seven sites from last summer and adding four new ones. Every week families have the opportunity to take home fruits and vegetables they are already familiar with and some that are new to them. This summer we received many in-season produce donations, including exotic fruits and vegetables like papaya, mango, chayote, okra, cabbage, blueberries, peaches, and spinach.
In addition to the nutrition education handbooks, tip sheets, recipe cards, and fun food samples for our families, we added food demonstrations (how to cut a mango, for example) to our repertoire of educational tools. They not only return home with fresh fruits and vegetables, but also the knowledge of how to use them!

As always, volunteers, parents, and children sampled our nutrition-packed snacks that always incorporate one or more of the produce items in their bags. One week we served Black Bean Dip and initially the kids looked away. After a brave girl tried it, other kids slowly gave in. By the end of the distribution, the entire sample was gone! Other popular recipes this summer have included the Razzle Dazzle Rainbow Salsa and Pineapple Crush Smoothie.

There’s more: program coordinators in Houston have taught over 150 CATCH lessons this summer alone! That’s more than 50 hours of nutrition education in eight weeks! Each week kids learn about physical activity, sugar, fiber, fat, breakfast, fruits, or veggies. We also incorporated the Sunbeatables program that stresses the importance of sun protection. Our staff has loved returning each week to hear what the kids remember from the previous lesson and how they applied that knowledge at home.

A big thanks to the Houston Food Bank and all of our partners that have made it possible for our team to share a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables with communities across Houston this summer. As always, our mission to serve families nutritious, fresh produce and promote behavior change wouldn’t be possible without our faithful parent volunteers who consistently came out to bag and distribute thousands pounds of produce this summer.