Keyword/Tag: Dallas

An Uplifting Morning at Williams Prep!

Posted on March 24, 2015 by -

Mrs. Ana L. Razo-Uplift

Parent Volunteer Ana Razo

Volunteers at Uplift Williams Preparatory are early risers! Every Thursday, after dropping off their kids in the morning, the volunteers stop by the computer room to help us bag the produce and serve the families at Williams Prep. We get started as early as 7:00 am and just 45 minutes later we are distributing the produce, recipe cards, and fun food samples to all participants. It is an incredible sight to see! Two of these volunteers are Ana Razo and Raquel Ariaz. They have been helping with Brighter Bites distributions at the school since the beginning of last semester. Each of them has a different perspective about the program’s impact. Ana told us that she has four children who love fruits and vegetables – unlike other parents, she doesn’t have to convince her children to eat them.  She said, “Typically I prepare the produce I receive from Brighter Bites by sautéing the veggies, like bell peppers and onions, and adding some type of meat.”  She also mentioned that she likes to cook soups and fresh salads with the produce too. Ana had gestational diabetes, so for her it is incredibly important to eat a balanced diet and teach her kids how to include fruits and vegetables in their meals and snacks every day. Brighter Bites has reduced Ana’s grocery bill from $160 to $110 per week and has made it possible for her and her family to eat more produce. Raquel Ariaz had a different story to tell. The members of her family did not generally like the flavor of most fruits and vegetables before they began participating in Brighter Bites. Cooking different kinds of fresh produce used to intimidate her. She chuckled as she said, “When I signed up to volunteer for Brighter Bites, I started cooking the fresh produce at home. My kids were mad at first because they were not used to eating that way, but now they love it!” Raquel credits the Brighter Bites recipe cards with helping her make positive changes in the kitchen. “My kids went from [saying] ‘I don’t want any’ to ‘may I have more please.’ I have never eaten this healthy in my life and I am so grateful for this program!” Raquel has seen changes in her and her family’s health, too. She has lost 10 pounds and her children are noticeably more energetic. Williams Prep volunteers truly make our mornings BRIGHTER and inspire us to continue bringing the Brighter Bites formula to all corners of Dallas!

A New Spring Semester is Blooming for Brighter Bites

Posted on February 3, 2015 by -

The weather may not feel quite like spring yet, but here in Dallas, Brighter Bites is gearing up for our first spring semester distributions! Uplift Williams and John Q. Adams Elementary, both outstanding participants in the Brighter Bites program, are first on the list to receive produce this week. We’re looking forward to seeing our families and the smiles that light up their faces when they pick up their Brighter Bites bags. The Dallas team worked hard over the break to make this our best semester yet! Jacqueline Noyola, one of our program coordinators, has been working with Alicia Farhat, our program manager, to translate the Brighter Bites website to Spanish. We think it’s important that all of our families benefit from the information on the site, no matter what language they speak. Meredith Spence, our community relations specialist, has been busy creating and growing new relationships throughout Dallas to spread the word about Brighter Bites. Our other program coordinator, Kristin Michalewicz, whipped up tons of yummy new recipes that will be debuting this spring. This week we’re excited to share a sweet potato dip that we think the families will find delectable. Spring 2015 Sweet Potato Dip Recipe 1 The Dallas team couldn’t be more excited to bring brighter choices to families again this spring. We’re ready to do some heavy lifting, get our hands dirty, and feed with impact!

Recruiting Fresh Families

Posted on January 27, 2015 by -

Here at Brighter Bites Dallas, we are always looking for opportunities to recruit new families to the program. On January 15th, the day Dallas ISD held parent/teacher conferences, we planted ourselves in the hallways at two of our current sites, Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary and C.F. Carr Elementary. We wanted to meet families who aren’t currently participating in Brighter Bites and remind those who are that produce distribution will start up again soon. We have great participation at these schools but we want to feed with even more impact when we get the chance. We set up shop with all of our usual Brighter Bites supplies, including a basket of crunchy, crispy apples and our nutrition handbooks, and talked with families about the program as they headed off to their meetings. families We are thrilled to announce that we recruited 50 new families for the spring semester at Jack Lowe Sr. Elementary! We also reconnected with several returning families and volunteers who are excited about the program starting again soon. At C.F. Carr Elementary, the kids were happy to see us – the apples were a huge hit and we gladly gave out seconds! The participating families and staff members are looking forward to more fresh produce this semester! We can’t wait to kick off the first spring distribution for Brighter Bites in Dallas. It was wonderful to see some familiar faces around the schools and remind our Brighter Biters that we’ll be back in a couple of weeks. See you soon!

WE Over Me Farm Field Trip

Posted on January 6, 2015 by -

What happens when the Brighter Bites Dallas team gets a little break from Brighter Bites distributions? We go in search of more produce at a farm WITHIN the city limits of course! The Brighter Bites Dallas team took a fun field trip to Paul Quinn College to see how other members of the community are helping families get crunchy, crispy, colorful produce and nutrition education. BB Dallas Team 1 From left: Jacqueline Noyola, Alicia Farhat, Kristin Michalewicz, Meredith Spence We met up with Hannah Koski, Director of Farming Operation, to get a quick tour of the WE Over Me Farm, which took over the football field in March 2010. She showed us the fields where they grow the fresh fruits and veggies along with an awesome green house and their aquaponics system with tilapia. They even have a chicken coop where they can get fresh eggs! Farm The farm is maintained by students at the college and provides educational experiences for both students and members of the community. The farm has loads of exciting things happening and we are glad we got the chance to see how other people are impacting the community in such positive ways. We look forward to going back in the spring to get our hands dirty and help grow tasty produce!

Dallas is Done!

Posted on December 9, 2014 by -

Wow! The semester flies by when you’re working with wonderful schools, families, and fresh produce! During the eight weeks, we brought  healthier choices and fun food experiences to our families.  One mother of three and a weekly volunteer at John Q. Adams Elementary, Elizabeth Salazar, absolutely loved Brighter Bites and the positive influence it had on her family!   BB Blog 12.09_1 Elizabeth and her family Our mission is to feed with impact by providing access to fresh produce and increasing food literacy with fun and informative nutrition education materials. Elizabeth used the 30 pounds of produce, donated by the North Texas Food Bank, to make delicious and healthful meals for her family. She said “with the fresh produce I receive, I can cook for my whole family and everybody is happy!”  Elizabeth was able to stretch her weekly grocery budget to ensure her three growing youngters have healthy meals and full bellies. BB Blog 12.09_2 Cheese Stuffed Zucchini that Elizabeth made NTFB and Brighter Bites impacted 1800 families this semester in nine Dallas schools! Each week we distributed 54,000 pounds of fresh produce; that’s a total of 432,000 pounds of freshness, crispiness, crunchiness, and unfiddled around with goodness over the course of the semester! Our amazing mom and volunteer, Elizabeth, said “the program is awesome because it’s nice to help and be helped at the same time!” We can’t wait to get back in the swing of things and bring more color and crunch to our families in the spring of 2015!

Brighter Bites – A Day in the Life!

Posted on November 20, 2014 by -

BRIGHTER BITES – A DAY IN THE LIFE! By Kristin Michalewicz and Jacqueline Noyola As Brighter Bites Coordinators (a North Texas Food Bank Partner Program) we are constantly on the go. Our jobs are rewarding and engaging, and can also be a bit hectic and sometimes force us to get our hands a little dirty! Last week, the Brighter Bites team met for a quick huddle to prepare for the week. We decided to make Crunchy Apple Crisps for families for the week’s healthy snack since it is prime apple season. After buying bags and bags of apples, we headed to NTFB’s amazing Community Kitchen to slice and bake the apples. (We couldn’t possibly give our precious kiddos the snack without a few taste tests ourselves to ensure deliciousness!) We packaged our Crunchy Apple Crisps and the recipe, along with the week’s supplies of nutrition education pieces for each of our nine schools. Then we hit the road. Brighter Bites Bags Kristin Michalewicz: I headed to a Brighter Bites elementary school in southwest Dallas. Because Brighter Bites is a collaborative, community based program, we work with each of our participating schools to recruit volunteers who help us bag the produce – the volunteers are mainly students’ family members, teachers, and occasionally older elementary students (9 and 10 year olds are crazy fast at bagging produce!). At noon I met Vaughan, the incredible NTFB distribution driver, at the school and he unloaded six pallets of fresh fruits and vegetables – a total of 5,100 pounds for 170 families at that school.

Brighter Bites Food Samples

Alicia Farhat (left) Kristin Michalewicz (right) preparing food samples for Brighter Bites families!

As we were in an assembly line bagging the produce into two paper bags per family, I talked to one mom who used last week’s red and green peppers to make stuffed peppers with a delicious mix of ground beef, bread crumbs and seasoning. I was so excited to hear that her kids FIRST ate the green and red peppers, then the stuffing! Jacqueline Noyola: I went to a different elementary school in north east Dallas. While chatting with one volunteer mom, she told me that her elementary aged son has always been interested in food and cooking, and aspires to become a chef one day. Since participating in Brighter Bites this fall, her son has been able to experiment and explore using the fresh fruits and vegetables to create new recipes. He is using the produce as a tool to express his creativity in the kitchen. And hopefully he is charting the course to become a world famous chef! We love our jobs, and we love that we get to spend each day with sweet families who are dedicated to making their kids’ lives brighter by helping to nourish them with healthy, fresh food. At the end of each week we crash, exhausted from moving all that produce, but renewed and energized knowing that we provided brighter choices and brighter outlooks for our 1,800 Brighter Bites families!

Brighter Bites Coordinator

Jacqueline Noyola ready to distribute delicious crunchy apple crisps!