Keyword/Tag: Brighter Bites

A Letter from Brighter Bites Executive Director Sam Newman

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Christina Blick -

Dear Friends,

One year ago this week I came on board as the Executive Director of this incredible organization, Brighter Bites. I knew that it had considerable momentum and that the challenge before us was significant, but what I didn’t grasp fully was that it would be like jumping aboard a moving airplane (an airplane that we continue to build as we fly it).

Fortunately we have help, and together with our growing list of Partners we made 2016 a very big year, working with more families and in more sites than ever before. Last year alone we distributed more than 5,000,000 pounds of produce to nearly 20,000 families in over 100 sites in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. We hired key staff, developed more healthy recipes than ever, and distributed over 600,000 pieces of nutrition education material.

We start our spring semester programming this week, and I can already tell you that 2017 is going to be even bigger.

A few days ago, the Austin NPR station KUT/90.5 FM began featuring Brighter Bites for its nonprofit focus in January. If you’ve ever wondered what Brighter Bites looks like in action, here’s KUT’s video of our program at the Anita Uphaus Early Childhood Center in Southeast Austin. Give it a look, and consider how you might help us Create a Community of Health through Fresh Food where you live.

– Log volunteer hours at one of our sites in Houston, Dallas, or Austin.
– Partner with us to help reach more families, more communities, and more cities.
– Help us change the eating behaviors of our children so they enhance their vitality.

Brighter Bites would not be where we are today without the ongoing support of our volunteers, partners, collaborators. To that end, a big thank you to Feeding Texas and the food banks with which we work (Houston, North Texas, and Central Texas), H-E-B and Sysco, the CATCH Global Foundation, UTHealth School of Public Health, and all our day-in-day-out compatriots who will help us make 2017 our biggest year yet. Let’s keep a good thing growing – join us.

All the best,

Sam Newman
samuel.newman@brighterbites.org

Brighter Bites Registered Dietician Interviewed on Univision in Austin

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Christina Blick -

This morning our very own Nayely Gutiérrez, a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist working with Brighter Bites in Austin, began regular conversations with Leslie Montoya on Univision 62’s Despierta Austin about nutrition and kids. In the first interview, Nayely and Leslie talked about the differences between a child’s palate and an adult’s, and that it takes 10-15 tries to accept a new food. Future conversations will focus on kid-friendly recipes, the importance of eating the rainbow, and the impact of sugary beverages and how to reduce them, among others.

Co-Founder Dr. Shreela Sharma Offers Tips in diaTribe Article

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Christina Blick -

Brighter Bites Co-Founder Dr. Shreela Sharma was interviewed by diaTribe® for her take on making diet-related New Year’s resolutions stick.

Here’s her first recommendation:

1. Set one (and only one) goal at a time.
Set one achievable and measurable goal at a time to figure out what works best. Dr. Sharma suggests trying to cook one more home-made meal each week, for example, or replacing one snack per day that isn’t altogether healthy with fruit or vegetables. After comfortably accomplishing the first goal, then start planning the next step.

Read the rest of the article to learn about the six others!

Brighter Bites Wraps up Best Year Yet!

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Christina Blick -

The year 2016 was big in every way for Brighter Bites. We worked with more families and more sites this year than ever before. We developed more recipes, hired more staff, and collaborated with more partners.

But here’s the big news! In 2016, Brighter Bites provided more produce to more families in one year than ever before! In fact, we distributed more than 5,000,000 pounds of produce to almost 20,000 families across more than 100 sites in Houston, Dallas, and Austin in 2016 alone!

That’s just one piece of news! Brighter Bites distributed more nutrition education materials in 2016 than in years past too — we passed out over 600,000 pieces of nutrition education material to our families this year!

And, Brighter Bites has given out more recipe samples this year than ever before too! Thousands of families have tasted more than 135,000 produce-based, kid-friendly, recipe samples developed and prepared by the Brighter Bites staff in 2016.

Brighter Bites would not be where we are today without the ongoing support of our partners and collaborators. Next year is going to be bigger and better! We can’t wait for 2017!

Brighter Bites Hits 10,000,000 Pound Milestone

Posted on December 19, 2016 by Christina Blick -

Last month Brighter Bites hit a remarkable milestone:

In just 4 years, we have provided more than 10,000,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables to over 20,000 families in Texas!!

We could not be prouder of our Brighter Bites staff or more grateful for our partners at the Houston Food Bank, North Texas Food Bank, Central Texas Food Bank, and Sysco. Thank you!!

Pictured above (clockwise): Brighter Bites Founders Lisa Helfman & Shreela Sharma; Brighter Bites Houston Program Staff; Brighter Bites Austin Program Staff; Brighter Bites Dallas Program Staff.

Brighter Bites Delivers Nearly 2,000,000 Pounds of Produce to Almost 8,000 Dallas Families in 2016

Posted on December 13, 2016 by Christina Blick -

North Texas Food Bank employees pictured above (left to right): Sally Seybert, Noe Saldivar, Jerrye Hall, Dale Long, Marcus Moss, Vince Rhinehart, Carl Rhodes, Danny Foreman, and Steve Coppedge.

The year 2016 has been the busiest yet for the Brighter Bites team in Dallas. As fall programming comes to an end this month, we will have delivered more than 763,900 pounds of fresh fruits and veggies to 3,330 families. Over the course of the entire year, we have distributed nearly 2,000,000 pounds of produce to almost 8,000 families.

With such a productive year, we could not be prouder of our team or more grateful for the support we have received from each school and summer camp we served this year. The parent and community volunteers, faculty, and administration at all of our sites have embraced our mission to create communities of health in Dallas and consistently work with us to help us achieve our goals at their sites. Our Program Director, Alicia Farhat, along with Program Coordinators Jacqueline Noyola, Magaly Solis, and Catherine Miller and Program Associates Meredith Spence, Jamie Carrillo, Dallas Ruggieri, Maryann Aguinaga, and Stephanie Wells truly appreciate all of them and their enthusiasm for Brighter Bites.

Our programming would not be possible without the unwavering support of the staff at the North Texas Food Bank (NTFB). The warehouse, transportation, and procurement teams at NTFB work in tandem with Brighter Bites Dallas to ensure that our families receive a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables every week that we provide programming. We cannot thank them enough for their partnership. Vince Rhinehart, Marcus Moss, Jerrye Hall, and Joe Crawford, among many other NTFB team members (pictured above), are the people who help to ensure there is a steady supply of produce arriving at our schools and summer camps all year long.

Finally, we want to thank FreshPoint Dallas for organizing produce donations from various suppliers this fall semester, and to everyone else who has donated their time and resources to ensure the success of Brighter Bites in Dallas.Your support of our mission is a testament to our success.

#GivingTuesday is Tomorrow!

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Christina Blick -

Nourish. Flourish. Give!

Tomorrow is #GivingTuesday. We know you have choices, so here are some facts that might help you make that decision.A donation of $50 will provide 10 Brighter Bites families with…

500 pounds of produce and
20 Brighter Bites nutrition handbooks (one each semester) and
150 produce-based, kid-friendly recipe cards.

Need another reason? Brighter Bites works…

Brighter Bites is a 16-week intervention that offers families a risk-free trial of 8-12 different types of fruits and vegetables along with nutrition education materials that help teach them how to use it. When the program ends, 74% of our families maintain the same level of produce consumption by purchasing the produce on their own.

There are many choices this #GivingTuesday, but when you give to Brighter Bites, you are redefining the way people eat, and that my friend is impactful.

Last year more than 700,000 people raised over $116,000,000 online in just one day. You can give the gift of time, donations, goods, or your voice. It’s your choice.

Make an impact this holiday season. Give back with Brighter Bites!

Brighter Bites Delivers 10 Million Pounds of Produce in 4 Years!

Posted on November 28, 2016 by Christina Blick -

It took just four short years for Brighter Bites to deliver 10,000,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables to more than 110 schools, camps, afters chool programs, and Head Starts in Houston, Dallas, and Austin. More than 20,000 families have taken this produce home and prepared it for their families and friends. This is impact!

Brighter Bites Austin Hits One Million Pounds!

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Christina Blick -

The Brighter Bites Austin team is proud to announce a remarkable milestone: since summer 2015, Brighter Bites has distributed more than 1 million pounds of produce to over 3,500 Austin families! The Austin team, made of up Program Director, Maggie Whittington, Program Coordinators Bethany Dawsonand Ellen Orabone and Program Associates Eliza Weeks, Katherine Patchak, and Christina JeanBaptiste, are grateful for the tremendous help they have received from parent and community volunteers, leadership, faculty, and staff at all Brighter Bites schools and camps in reaching this goal.

This moment cannot pass without a shout out to the incredible partners we work with every day at the Central Texas Food Bank. The staff members, pictured below, provide tremendous support to Brighter Bites by sourcing and providing donated produce to our program, storing that produce in the food bank’s warehouse, and delivering it to our sites.

“I love what Brighter Bites is doing and the way that our missions complement one another,” Bethany Carney, Food Source Manager at the food bank, told the Byte recently. Mike Wooten, the food bank’s Warehouse Manager says, “Contributing to Brighter Bites has been very rewarding.”

This wonderful group of individuals is committed to our success and we are grateful to them everyday. Thanks also goes to PureFlavor, Potandon Produce, and Church Brothers Farms for their generous donations of fruits and vegetables, FreshPoint South Texas for organizing those donations, and to everyone else who has donated to Brighter Bites with their time or otherwise. We could not have reached this goal without you.

Local Austin NPR Station Features Brighter Bites

Posted on November 8, 2016 by Christina Blick -

The local NPR station in Austin, KUT – 90.5 FM, will be featuring Brighter Bites in the station’s KUT Get Involved series in January 2017. This series spotlights a different nonprofit each month to connect KUT’s listeners, through volunteering or financial contributions, with local charities making an impact in the Austin area. Mike Lee, the producer behind the series, interviewed our staff and volunteers (Brighter Bites parent Jose Queiroz, above, was one of them) at Uphaus Early Childhood Center in Austin last week.