News Type: Volunteers on View

Local Church Raises $$ for Brighter Bites Dallas

Posted on December 13, 2016 by -

local-church

Parent volunteers of Lee A. McShan Jr. Elementary School give their time to bag fresh produce for the school’s 250 Brighter Bites families.

A big shout goes out to all the families at the Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church (PHPC) in Dallas who donated more than $1,750 to Brighter Bites in the month of November! Brighter Bites and the families at Lee A. McShan Jr. Elementary School, the Brighter Bites school closest to the church, are grateful for their support. Dalene Buhl, who works with McShan’s reading program, is responsible for recommending Brighter Bites to PHPC’s donation outreach committee, and we are grateful for her contagious enthusiasm about our organization. These funds will help support Brighter Bites at McShan Elementary School.

Parent Volunteers Love Brighter Bites!

Posted on September 22, 2016 by -

IMG_3281 IMG_3274

To give you a glimpse of the impact of Brighter Bites on our families, we interviewed Angelina Bautista (above left) and Ana Beltran, two amazing moms at Lorenzo DeZavala Elementary in West Dallas who regularly give back to their school community by volunteering week after week with Brighter Bites.

How long have you been involved with Brighter Bites?

Angelina: Since the program began at our school. Going on 3 years. I like to help with both the bagging and distribution. We deliver bags to the teachers’ rooms too. They say hello to the students – giving a quick hug to the kids they know – and hand the teachers their bags. The kids always oohhh and ahhhh when we deliver the bags, and the teachers are equally excited.

Ana: 2 years; I was here when the program began and then came back this year. Our daughters are in the same 1st grade class and are close friends. They come hang out while we help pass out bags and samples.

Angelina: We will continue to help as long as y’all are here and will let us!

What do you like about Brighter Bites?

Angelina: It’s a really good program. It helps me save money on my groceries.

Ana: I agree. And my kids love the food, especially the fruit. My son who helps us out at bagging and distributions, started eating two apples, one in each hand, while we were bagging today. I had to tell him to save some for his sister!

Angelina: My daughter loves the fruit too. She also likes the cucumbers.

What changes has the program had on your family?

Ana: The program helps us eat more healthy foods. We also get a lot of good ideas about how to prepare the food in our bags and try new things at home. The sample is great for the kids.

Brighter Bites from the POV of a Mission Year Volunteer

Posted on July 31, 2016 by -

peace
My name is Michael and I’m from Spokane, WA. I’ve had the privilege of being partnered with Brighter Bites during my time in Mission Year. For those who don’t know, Mission Year is a year-long faith-based volunteer program that partners with inner city nonprofits in Houston, Chicago, and Philadelphia, and has a special focus on issues of justice and solidarity. I’d like to tell you just a little bit about how I’ve seen and experienced these issues during my time here.

Working with Brighter Bites this last year has been incredibly rewarding and eye opening. For the first time in my life I have seen what it is like to live on an extremely restricted budget. Our house, for example, is given a grocery stipend of $2.40/person per day. With my wife and another couple, that adds up to a grand total of about $65 per week. That’s breakfast, lunch and dinner for four people for under $300 a month. Realizing just how much thought and preparation that goes along with these restrictions make me appreciate the challenges that many in our community face.

We are also placed intentionally in the communities that our programs serve, and the great part about this is that my house is located just five minutes from three schools that Brighter Bites serves in the area. Living in the same neighborhood as many Brighter Bites families, I’ve been able to see the need that Brighter Bites has filled. Many times I’ll see moms and dads from our schools at the H-E-B where I shop. They’ll tell me stories of how they wouldn’t have been able to have friends for dinner without Brighter Bites or how they can’t normally afford their child’s favorite fruit, but were able to enjoy it this week! What I’ve really taken away from my experience this year, is gratitude. I’m grateful for being part of a place that truly has the needs of the community close to its heart. It makes me happy to see the gratitude in the stories of the families whose lives have been impacted with such a seemingly small gesture: a bag of fresh produce.

The best part: I’m returning to Brighter Bites as a Program Coordinator in Houston!

A 6-year-old Boy who Serves Fresh Produce Samples to Others

Posted on July 17, 2016 by -

Juan
Meet our young volunteer Juan Muñoz! He is our most dedicated fun food sample promoter at our summer site, Boys and Girls Club in Oak Cliff, Dallas.

Since our summer distributions started in June, Juan has been eager to help encourage families to try our tasty recipes that highlight a variety of fresh fruits and veggies. Juan believes that children should be exposed to as many different foods as possible. He says, “Every child should start out by eating all fruits and veggies and that way when they get older, they will like to eat everything!”

Juan’s enthusiasm for convincing all of his “customers” that walk through the door to try the sample is contagious and truly brightens everyone’s experience with Brighter Bites!

Cele(ry)brating Our Volunteers

Posted on May 31, 2016 by -

13268388_1184304858260109_5730021291304049376_o

Volunteers are vital to the success of Brighter Bites and without them we could not serve the thousands of families during the year. To show our deep appreciation, the Houston Brighter Bites team celebrated all the volunteers from the school year at a Volunteer Appreciation Party on May 19 at the Houston Food Bank. It was an event to remember!

About 130 people attended from 21 of our Houston schools. The day was filled with food, stories, pictures, and laughs. Keeping in true Brighter Bites form, program coordinator Christina Blick made a healthy lunch consisting of chicken salad sandwiches, tomato basil soup, avocado-lime dip, and banana ice cream. The families even received these recipes and a measuring cup as party favors! It wouldn’t be a party without raffle prizes for our guests of honor! Cookbooks,  plastic food containers, radios, and blenders were awarded to several lucky winners! We also had a fun photo booth for kids (and parents!) with giant fruit and vegetable props — all of the pictures are on the Brighter Bites Facebook page.

13227316_1184304471593481_6227632214043571226_o

To end the day, we offered tours of the Houston Food Bank. The volunteers absolutely loved seeing where all that produce comes from! The party was a huge success and we had a great time celebrating and thanking our volunteers for everything they do. Holy guacamole, we can’t wait until next year to do it again!

Cele(ry)brating Our Volunteers

Posted on May 31, 2016 by -

13268388_1184304858260109_5730021291304049376_o

Volunteers are vital to the success of Brighter Bites and without them we could not serve the thousands of families during the year. To show our deep appreciations, the Houston Brighter Bites team celebrated all the volunteers from the school year at a Volunteer Appreciation Party on May 19. We hosted the party at the Houston Food Bank, the site where all of the Brighter Bites produce is stored. It was an event to remember!

Fall Break with Brighter Bites

Posted on October 18, 2015 by -

A group of Southern Methodist University (SMU) students volunteered at an east Dallas Brighter Bites elementary school this week as part of the SMU Alternative Fall Break program. Designed to engage students in direct service with an organization, this program focuses on providing participants with an understanding of the complex issue of poverty. Eight SMU students and their faculty advisor worked with parent and community volunteers to move, bag, and distribute 4300 pounds of fresh produce for the 130 Brighter Bites families at the school. The elementary kiddos were thrilled to see the SMU students walking through their halls that day. Brighter Bites always appreciates community members who volunteer, especially hard working college students. Thanks, Mustangs!

Weekend Volunteers Kick off the Summer in Houston

Posted on June 12, 2015 by -

Brighter Bites Houston launched its third summer season with an especially exciting twist last weekend. We held a volunteering event at the Houston Food Bank utilizing our assembly line process to bag potatoes, onions, corn, and green beans in preparation for our first week of distributions.

IMG_3130

Typically we do bag everything onsite but for the first time we gave our parents and community members who aren’t available to volunteer during the work day a chance to contribute to the program in a new and different way. Not only did we meet new volunteers, but we also had the opportunity to work more closely with the Volunteer Productions Department at the Houston Food Bank. If you’ve ever had the pleasure of working in the carousel room at the Houston Food Bank you know how much fun we had last Saturday. Everyone is ready to work and have fun. Over 20 community volunteers helped us fill 456 bags of potatoes, onions, corn, and fresh green beans (about 15 lbs. apiece, if you’re counting, which we are). All of the bags were delivered on Tuesday to Gulfton Promise Head Start and Ripley House, two of the larger Brighter Bites sites in Houston. Having the produce pre-bagged helped to make the distributions run quite smoothly. We’re going to hold several more weekend volunteer events throughout the Brighter Bites seasons. Keep an eye out on Volunteer Match as well as the Houston Food Bank volunteer calendar.

Fridays at Oran M. Roberts Elementary

Posted on May 5, 2015 by -

Every Friday when I wake up and realize it’s my day to go to Oran M. Roberts Elementary School in Dallas, I get excited. I love working with the parent volunteers at this school. We are a well-oiled machine, moving heavy boxes of produce together, filling Brighter Bites bags with fruits and vegetables as we dance to the rhythm of Latin Beats, and distributing delicious food samples to families at pick up. Last week we bagged a total of about 8,500 pounds of produce into 270 pairs of Brighter Bites bags. Not bad for just one morning! One of our hardest workers, Leona Santos, was able to take a break in between her volunteering duties last Friday and shared her thoughts on Brighter Bites. Santos, as she likes to be called, did not have a lot of food available while growing up in Mexico. Fruit was a luxury and vegetables were rare. “This program has helped me appreciate what we receive,” she told me, “and to show my children to be grateful for what they have.” Santos is excited for the opportunity to give her kids what she was not able to have when she was growing up.

Leona Santos, parent volunteer at Oran M. Roberts Elementary in Dallas.

Leona Santos, parent volunteer at Oran M. Roberts Elementary in Dallas.

Her children, who are 8 and 14 years old, love eating a variety of food. They enjoy their mother’s vegetable soups, which usually include carrots, potatoes and any of the delicious veggies that show up in her Brighter Bites bags each week. They always ask for seconds and Santos appreciates that now she has the opportunity to expose her kids to a range of produce in her soups and other recipes.

LEADERSHIP AT ITS BEST

Posted on April 21, 2015 by -

DSC00699

John Quincy Adams once said “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” The parent volunteers at John Quincy Adams Elementary School in Dallas definitely agree that their community liaison, Ana Barbosa sets a great example of a leader that is inspiring. The volunteer team is comprised of parents that truly hold Ms. Barbosa in high regard due to her willingness and commitment to foster an environment of community togetherness. When the Brighter Bites program was first introduced at John Quincy Adams Elementary, it was immediately evident that we would be working with an innovative liaison. Ms. Barbosa quickly created an efficient punch card system to use during our Brighter Bites distribution. This new system has allowed us to have an effortless produce distribution and in turn continues to provide more opportunities to engage with families. Ms. Barbosa is well known for showing her deep appreciation for the volunteers. She hosts numerous volunteer appreciation luncheons and activities throughout the year. Ana Barbosa is a rooting fan of Brighter Bites and when asked what she thought about it she stated “The program is awesome! Especially for the parents, it is helping them tremendously.” She also mentioned that having Brighter Bites at her school has helped the volunteer program grow and almost double in numbers. The staff at Brighter Bites in Dallas is thrilled with Ana’s leadership. The future certainly does look bright at John Quincy Adams Elementary.