Philadelphia’s Snackin’ Fresh students stoked by visit from First Lady

Students promote fresh, healthy food with their peers.

By Luke Nolan
Posted March 1, 2010

The Snackin’ Fresh Leadership Crew was ready for Michelle Obama when she rolled into Philadelphia to promote ways to make fresh, local and nutritious food more accessible to students everywhere. But these elementary students have been focused on this theme long before the President’s wife raised its profile.

These food-aware children from five of Philadelphia’s public schools work with their peers and corner store owners to make their communities healthier through The Food Trust’s Healthy Corner Store Initiative (HCSI).

“Really, the students are the one’s leading the project and generating the ideas to encourage healthy eating,” said Katie Olender, who coordinates the Snackin’ Fresh Leadership Crew through The Food Trust.

Obesity in the United States is still pervasive. According to a recent study by The Food Trust and Temple University’s Center for Obesity Research in Philadelphia, about 32 percent of children here are overweight or obese. In urban communities that lack supermarkets and where corner stores are the primary source of grocery purchases, too few healthy food options may be a primary reason.

In fact, only 11 percent of corner store inventory in the Philadelphia stores researched in 2008 had foods that met their standard as being “healthy.” 

Praise for young leaders

When Obama arrived last week to discuss federal funding for a new multi-year Healthy Food Financing Initiative (HFFI) and her “Let’s Move" campaign to end the epidemic of childhood obesity, she praised this group of urban kids who are spearheading change. She cited the determination over the past six years of collaborators in Philadelphia to address the poor level of access to healthy foods for children in many neighborhoods. 

“It can be expensive and time-consuming to take a bus to go to a supermarket,” student project coordinator Olender said. “This makes it very difficult for one to shop anywhere but in their own community where there are predominantly low-nutritive foods and beverages. The kids are being developed at a very young age to eat those foods, and that is partly why we are focusing on them.”

Snackin’ Fresh Leadership Crews take what they learned in class and work together to affect healthy changes in their communities. They promote healthy eating amongst their peers and in the community through the creation of the Snackin’ Fresh website, development of social marketing materials, and promotion of Snackin’ Fresh brand of fruit salads, water and produce being sold in corner stores, and through the creation of a youth-led video on their efforts.

The kids put stickers on healthy food options at corner stores, and they’ve generated a series of comic books to get the message out to their friends. A member of the Food Trust teaches the students nutrition facts so that they will know how to read the food product labels. Olender supervises, but the students are the ones that make things work.

Kids decide

“That is the most unique thing,” she said. “It’s kids coming up with marketing techniques to kids, not professionals, and in this way they know what is working well and not . . . They tell us what they’ll eat and we have taste tests to see if they are the types of products they would actually buy at the corner store.”

In laying the foundations for healthy eating in the communities, The Food Trust incorporates organic food in some of its programs and hopes it can become a part of its larger picture.

“Organics are definitely involved in our programs,” said April White, communications manager. “Our mission is to ensure that everyone has access to healthy affordable food. Some of our programs, such as the Farmers’ Market, utilize organics, but when it comes to putting healthier foods in our corner stores, we are thinking about just getting apples in the store,” she said.

Through the 29 farmers markets in the region and 10 gardens at local schools run by students, the Trust is also able to cultivate produce to be donated to food banks, used in the schools for nutrition, and eaten by community volunteers in addition to the Healthy Corner Store Program.

While the mission has made successful advances up to date, the visit this past Friday by First Lady Obama has also helped revitalize the students’ mission looking forward.

Recognition = motivation

“I think that it really energized them,” said Olender. “Not only is she a prominent figure but they can relate to her. It’s nice to have role models that you feel kinship with, and the kids were just beaming and attentive. It has made them very excited about moving forward. These kids are working very hard. For them to get recognition, especially at that level, is just huge.”

During her speech, Obama recognized the Pennsylvania as a model that she’d like to replicate, citing the $30 million investment that the commonwealth made six years ago that also served to leverage $190 million from private and non-profit sectors and help bring healthy food to 400,000 Pennsylvanians.

According to Olender, this statement about the bigger parts of the effort beyond their community was important for the students. “It was important for the kids to understand that they are leaders in their school and their country,” she said.  “To hear that they are a part of something that she wants to replicate and that has inspired her was very cool.”

Luke Nolan is a communications intern at the Rodale Institute. He is a 2008 graduate with a Bachelor of Arts in rhetoric and communication studies from Mount St. Mary's University, and plans to pursue environmental law certification through a J.D. program.

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Read more about the importance of eating fresh, organic produce.