Our Healthy Foods, Healthy Families program empowers low-income Rhode Island families and seniors with the tools to shop for and cook affordable fresh foods through a series of hands-on activities, offered in English and Spanish, at the Farmers Market. Parents come with their children to the market where the Healthy Foods, Healthy Families staff will offer free samples, games, recipes, and giveaways! In 2010, our program reached 300 families in Providence, Pawtucket, Cranston, Central Falls and Woonsocket. It was more popular than we expected, and we enrolled 50 more families beyond our expectation.

In 2011, we are thrilled to have Whole Foods as a signature sponsor in collaboration with their Health Starts Here program.

As a recipient of the Blue Angel Community Health Grant (BACHG), Farm Fresh Rhode Island was able to expand the successful 2008 pilot program to these four markets in 2009 and 2010. Our market at Armory Park ranked #1, Pawtucket #2, Broad St. #3 and Woonsocket #5 based on 2008 WIC usage across RI.

How It Works: A Curriculum for Eating Fresh

The Healthy Foods, Healthy Families program, started at the Armory Park Farmers' Market as a pilot site in 2008, offers a curriculum of nutrition education through fun, interactive activities for both parent and child. The curriculum also includes cooking demonstrations featuring healthy recipes. Low-income families, identified through their participation in the WIC (Women, Infant, and Children) program, sign up for the program and commit to at least three weeks of the curriculum. Families receive a new item to help them use more fruits and veggies for each week they complete:

• Week 1: Recipe book (PDF) in Spanish and English
• Week 2: Canvas bag
• Week 3: $25 in Fresh Bucks (coins that can be used to purchase fruits and vegetables at farmers' markets).

Educational cooking demos by Johnson & Wales and RI Dept. of Health's Veggin' Out and URI's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) Outreach are already organized each season at many farmers' markets. Our Healthy Foods, Healthy Families complements those demos by helping families on a budget to make the most of the markets and their nutritious bounty of foods.

Goals

Healthy Foods, Healthy Families will expand upon Farm Fresh Rhode Island's current nutrition education outreach. This program will improve the health of Rhode Island's low-income families and decrease the prevalence of obesity by:

1. Increasing knowledge of nutrition for parents and for their children
2. Offering parents and caregivers the tools necessary to make healthier choices while shopping for food
3. Raising awareness of Farmers' Markets in these communities as a place to purchase affordable, high quality fruits and vegetables.
4. Increasing fruit and vegetable consumption

Since its inception in 2004, Farm Fresh Rhode Island has worked to achieve these four goals by managing farmers' markets in low-income and/or food insecure areas, accepting Food Stamp / SNAP benefits and WIC Farmers' Market coupons at these markets, and partnering with state agencies and area universities to offer healthy cooking demonstrations at the markets.

Evaluation

• Fruit and Vegetable Self-Efficacy Scale (Word)
• Fruit and Vegetable Screening (Word)