Keyword/Tag: Washington DC

Brighter Bites Distributes Over 600,000 Pounds of Fresh Produce and Nutrition Resources to Washington, D.C. Schools

Posted on August 3, 2021 by -

Brighter Bites Distributes Over 600,000 Pounds of Fresh Produce and Nutrition Resources To Washington, D.C. – Area Schools During 2020-2021 School Year

Prince George’s County, MD (August 3, 2021) – Brighter Bites, a nonprofit program working to provide children with nutrition resources and fresh produce, completed a successful 2020-2021 school year in the Washington, D.C./Prince George’s County areas by providing 2,872 families boxes of fresh fruits and vegetables along with hundreds of nutrition education resources.

The boxes totaled 616,218 pounds and on average, contained 8 to 10 unique produce items. Area programming took place at 10 sites, including elementary schools in Adelphi, Capitol Heights, Glenarden, Hyattsville, Landover, Landover Hills, and Riverdale, and was strengthened by key partner relationships.

“The Brighter Bites program was instrumental in educating our school communities about good nutrition, encouraging families to try new foods, and keeping our community fed, especially during the pandemic when finances and other resources were quite limited for many,” said Valerie Brooks, educator at Cool Spring Elementary School in Adelphi. “Brighter Bites was a blessing to many families here at Cool Spring.”

To additionally benefit teachers and school communities, Brighter Bites provided teachers with CATCH online nutrition lessons, as well as videos around produce-related activities for ease of sharing with students. CATCH, which stands for Coordinated Approach to Child Health, encourages children and their communities to adopt healthier lifestyles, and aligns with Brighter Bites’ mission to distribute fresh food to students in under-resourced communities.

“Brighter Bites in Prince George’s County had a very successful school year despite the logistical challenges due to COVID-19,” said Carolina Moppett, Sr. Program Manager for Brighter Bites’ Washington, D.C.-area operations. “We were so pleased to serve over 2,800 families this year, and to receive such enthusiastic feedback from our participating teachers.”

Major D.C.-area partners include the Capital Area Food Bank and Coastal Sunbelt Produce, which from the start of the program have consistently provided produce and and arranged deliveries to the schools.

“As the Prince George’s County Council Member representing many Brighter Bites families, I am so pleased with the impact the organization is making in our communities,” said Prince George’s County Council Member Dannielle M. Glaros (D-District 3). “The fruits and vegetables, as well as the nutrition education materials that have been distributed, have been so well received and appreciated by all.”

About Brighter Bites:

Brighter Bites is a nonprofit that creates communities of health through fresh food with the goal of changing behavior among children and their families to prevent obesity and achieve long-term health. Brighter Bites is an evidence-based, multi-component elementary school, preschool, and summer camp program that utilizes reliable access to fruits and vegetables, nutrition education, and consistent exposure to recipes and messages that feature fresh food. Since 2012, Brighter Bites has provided over 40 million pounds of produce and millions of nutrition education materials to more than 475,000 individuals (including teachers) in Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City, the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area, and Southwest Florida. In February 2021 Brighter Bites expanded its programming to Salinas, California. To learn more about Brighter Bites visit www.brighterbites.org.

Partner Spotlight: The Coastal Companies Foundation

Posted on February 25, 2019 by -

Brighter Bites is fortunate to work with incredible produce partners around the country, and today we’d like to introduce you to a unique partner that is an integral part of our Washington, D.C. program: The Coastal Companies Foundation.

The Coastal Companies Foundation (Coastal) is a major mid-Atlantic distributor of fresh produce and dairy and a leading regional processor of fruits and vegetables through its three operating businesses: Coastal Sunbelt Produce, East Coast Fresh, and Cold Chain Logistics. Coastal was established in 2012 with the mission of nourishing its community through nutrition, education, and good corporate citizenship. “Our partnership with Brighter Bites further helps us accomplish that mission by directing produce and education to children and their families right here in our backyard,” said Micah Brown, president of East Coast Fresh and executive director of The Coastal Companies Foundation. “We are thrilled to be able to positively influence the eating habits of our surrounding community through the Brighter Bites program and give back in a truly meaningful way.”

We are equally thrilled to partner with Coastal, who has put their full-support behind Brighter Bites and mobilized their network of regional growers to introduce our families to an incredible variety of produce.

Jaci Daly, a Coastal Sunbelt Produce buyer, explains the process of gathering produce donations from suppliers:

“We seek support primarily through direct donations, but also by looking for opportunities when market supply exceeds demand. Our goal is to provide four unique items per week and, when possible, look to source retail packed products for two main reason: so families can recognize the brands when they are shopping on their own and to make it easier for volunteers packing the bags.”

Coastal’s dedication to sourcing produce from their incredible network of vendors has resulted in Coastal supporting half of our produce donations in Washington, D.C. Past Coastal produce donations have included unusual and exciting items like persimmons, celery root, Asian pears, and even edible flowers!

“Our vendors are proud to join us in supporting Brighter Bites, because they share our belief in the mission of creating communities of health through fresh food,” said Daly.

“We’re thrilled that Brighter Bites is empowering families with the knowledge to choose healthy, fresh produce, and we look forward to continuing to partner with them through Coastal,” said Josh Curland of BrightFarms, a Coastal vendor.

Brown put it best when he described the communal effort of the produce industry to create communities of health:

“While I’m not surprised by the impact of the program in Prince George’s County, I have been so impressed and humbled by the produce industry as a whole as it has come together to support this great cause, both here in the D.C. metro area and across the nation. Without the amazing support of our vendors and suppliers, none of this would be possible. And I can say personally that seeing the joy and genuine gratitude on the faces of those we are able to serve each week through this program makes it all worthwhile.”

We are so humbled by the hard work and generosity of The Coastal Companies Foundation and their dedicated vendors, and thank them from the bottom of our hearts for their incredible partnership over the last two years. We can’t wait to keep creating communities of health with you!

Check out a few snaps of our students saying thank you to Coastal’s amazing vendors!

 

Behind the Scenes: Brighter Bites in Washington, D.C.

Posted on February 25, 2019 by -

In the fall of 2017, Brighter Bites launched in our fifth city. Earlier that summer, we had expanded our program beyond Texas (where we had established programs in Houston, Dallas, and Austin) and to the East Coast, where we began programming in New York City (read all about our NYC program here). After expanding to NYC, the most populous city in the United States, it was exciting to bring Brighter Bites to another iconic city: Washington, D.C.

By operating the Brighter Bites program in D.C. – right in the backyard of congressional representatives – we are provided with a unique opportunity to invite our nation’s policy makers to see our three-part model in person.

Two important partnerships have provided the foundation for success for Brighter Bites in D.C.

The first crucial partnership is with the Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB), a nationall- innovative food bank and the leading champion of hunger relief in the D.C. metro region for decades. Brighter Bites’ Washington, D.C. office is located at the CAFB. “We feel like a part of the Food Bank community,” says Tara McNerney, Washington, D.C.’s Brighter Bites Program Director. “They’ve fully integrated us with the staff, operations, and planning there, and it’s been so helpful to our collaboration!” The CAFB provides half of the produce needed for the Brighter Bites program, as well as storage and transportation of the produce to schools. It was also CAFB that identified Prince George’s County, Maryland (which borders D.C.) as an ideal place for Brighter Bites to launch our D.C. program in its initial years. CAFB’s Hunger Heat Map  identified this area as one of high food insecurity with fewer hunger relief resources flowing to it. Brighter Bites is happy to help bridge that gap!

Pamela Boozer-Strother, District 3 Prince George’s County Public School Board of Education member recently visited a Brighter Bites produce bagging at Cool Spring Elementary School and was highly enthusiastic about the arrival of Brighter Bites to Prince George’s County. She commented that “nutrition is increasingly understood as a very important issue” by the education sector, and that “Brighter Bites is joining a really strong and effective group of nonprofits working with our students.” Read the full interview with Pamela here.

The second crucial partnership for the D.C. Brighter Bites program is with The Coastal Companies Foundation. Its subsidiary, Coastal Sunbelt Produce, is the mid-Atlantic’s leading food service distributor of produce, and they value Brighter Bites’ mission to build long-lasting healthy habits in children and their families. “The fact that the Brighter Bites model is rooted in data that shows quantifiable results really appeals to us” said Jaci Daly, a Coastal buyer and Brighter Bites’ primary liaison to the company. Coastal provides the D.C. program with the other half of our produce. Each week they send four unique produce varieties, items as unusual and exciting as persimmons, celery root, Asian pears, and even edible flowers! The families participating in Brighter Bites in Prince George’s County are exposed to so many new fruits and vegetables thanks to our partnership with Coastal!

In partnership with CAFB and Coastal, Brighter Bites has delivered more than 250,000 pounds of produce to over 1,000 families in Prince George’s County, MD, in the past year. We get feedback about Brighter Bites from our participating families all the time. One parent recently told us, “It’s very helpful to me because I was able to change my eating habits. I’ve become health conscious.” Another said, “For me, it was a great help, because I was able to try thing that I’ve never tried and that I cannot buy.”

Recently CAFB’s new CEO, Radha Muthiah, paid a visit to the state-of-the-art Coastal facility with Tara McNerney, Brighter Bites Program Director. They were excited to discuss with Coastal the plan to expand our programs to even more schools in Prince George’s County next year!

To learn more about our D.C. program, check out the spotlight on our Washington, D.C. team here.

By Tara McNerney, Program Director, Brighter Bites Washington, D.C.

A Special Visit in Washington, D.C.

Posted on February 25, 2019 by -

One cold and rainy December day in Washington, D.C., Brighter Bites had the pleasure of receiving a visit from Prince George’s County Public School District 3 Board of Education member, Pamela Boozer-Strother.  Upon arriving at Cool Spring Elementary, a school in Adelphi, MD, Pamela immediately rolled up her sleeves and jumped right in to lend a hand alongside the family volunteers who were in the midst of bagging produce. Later we gave her the full orientation to our program and nutrition education materials, and she had the opportunity to speak with several school staff and participating parents. We reconnected with Pamela afterwards to get her thoughts on the program:

In what ways do the services provided by Brighter Bites align with the Board of Education’s goals for Prince George’s County schools?

“Number one, it aligns with our community engagement and the new Prince George’s County Community Schools Policy to work with a wide variety of nonprofits and organizations that want to bring services to our students.” She remarked that “Brighter Bites is joining an already really strong and effective group of nonprofits working with our students,” and noted that “nutrition is increasingly understood as a very important issue” by people working in education.

Why do you think free produce and nutrition education is important for students and families?

“I think what it comes down to is teachers and administrators want to do what they can to make sure a student enters the classroom ready to learn. We as a society recognized a long time ago that we should be providing free and reduced price lunch and breakfast, and this is the next step in achieving our vision of healthy children ready to learn and succeed.”

What do you think will be the greatest impact Brighter Bites will have on Prince George’s County schools and families?

“From my experience I saw that it was empowering students to be active in the families’ decisions in what they should eat. And also what Brighter Bites does is make deciding what the family should eat a family activity. It’s true family engagement because it’s designed for children to learn in the classroom and for parents to take home the information and to engage together in learning.”

How do you see Brighter Bites and the public school system developing our partnership in the future?

“There’s certainly greater demand from our schools than what Brighter Bites might be able to meet right now. You’ll see more and more PGCPS schools applying as they hear about the program!”

Thank you Pamela for your service to the students and families of Prince George’s County! Brighter Bites is thrilled to be building communities of health in Prince George’s County and to have the support of its elected officials.

 

By Tara McNerney, Program Director, Brighter Bites Washington, D.C.

Meet our D.C. Staff!

Posted on February 25, 2019 by -

Brighter Bites has an amazing team leading our program in the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area!

Program Director Tara McNerney has lived in D.C. for nearly eight years and was thrilled to join Brighter Bites in November 2017. Her background in food, sustainability, and education prepared her to implement the Brighter Bites three-pillared program. Read Tara’s full bio here.

Program Coordinator Carolina Moppett brings to her role excellent skills as an educator and communicator. She is fully bilingual (her family is from Argentina and Uruguay), which is helpful to our team because many of our families in Prince George’s County speak only Spanish. Read Carolina’s full bio here.

Tara and Carolina are joined by part-time program associates Rajni Sood Laurent and Tamirra Glover. Rajni has a background in public health, education, and international affairs and has a deep passion for improving the health of Prince George’s County, where she resides with her family and sends her children to school.

Tamirra is an associate and part-time intern for Brighter Bites. She is studying for her master’s of science in health education and promotion at Marymount University in Arlington, VA,  and is contributing to several projects benefiting our program while gaining on-the-ground experience with Brighter Bites.

Every Tuesday the whole team congregates at the Capital Area Food Bank’s (CAFB) warehouse and educational kitchen, where the team’s office is located. Tara and Rajni lead a group of CAFB volunteers in moving up to 10,000 pounds of produce to build the pallets for our schools that week — a true muscle-building task! Tamirra and Carolina are meanwhile in the CAFB kitchen preparing a recipe for families to taste test at our distributions.

David Washington, Ronald McLendon, Henry Davis, and Lorenzo Wright are four CAFB employees who work in the warehouse and contribute their time, care, and expertise in forklift operation to the Brighter Bites program. We could not do it without them!

Our family volunteers – too numerous to name individually – also make the program a success by bagging the produce once it arrives at the schools. Not only do they functionally make the program run, but they also make our Brighter Bites team smile with their enthusiasm!

 

Brighter Bites is so fortunate to have our team and partners working hand-in-hand to build communities of health in the nation’s capital and surrounding area. Visit our volunteer page to find out how you can pitch in!

 

By Tara McNerney, Program Director, Brighter Bites Washington, D.C.

Partner Highlight: Clagett Farm

Posted on October 10, 2018 by -

Brighter Bites is fortunate to partner with so many amazing organizations across the country that share our mission of creating communities of health through fresh food. One such organization is Clagett Farm.

Clagett Farm is a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm in Upper Marlboro, Maryland run by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, a regional nonprofit that seeks to protect the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem. The Chesapeake Bay Foundation has developed Clagett Farm into an veritable outdoor classroom where local students have the opportunity to learn the principles of sustainable farming. For the past 20 years, Clagett Farm has partnered with the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C. to provide free and reduced-price, fresh produce to people living in poverty and near-poverty in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.

Our partnership in Washington, D.C. with the Capital Area Food Bank led to an introduction to Clagett Farm, which began donating produce to Brighter Bites families this past July. Their weekly donations have made a significant impact on the amount of variety we have been able to offer our families. Since Clagett Farm began donating produce this past summer, Brighter Bites in D.C. has increased the number of different items we have been sending home with our families from eight varieties of fresh produce each week to eleven!

“The produce from Clagett farm has been some of the freshest produce Brighter Bites has distributed in Prince George’s County, said Tara McNerney, program director for Brighter Bites in Washington, D.C. “By partnering with a local farm that takes such care in growing their vegetables we’ve been able to provide our families with produce that is very appealing in appearance, taste, and smell — more than once we’ve heard comments about the delicious smells of the peppers and tomatoes!. Families appreciate the Brighter Bites bags even more when we tell them that the beautiful produce is coming from a local farm, and it adds to the community building nature of the Brighter Bites program.”

Clagett Farm produce went home with families at both of our summer sites, and this fall all five schools in Prince George’s County, Maryland are having the opportunity to taste it as well. Each week we have been wowed by the quality and variety of produce Clagett enables our families to take home and taste. Recently, families went home with sweet baby orange bell peppers that were popping with flavor. Over the summer, families tried many varieties of heirloom tomatoes, eggplants, beans, and okra. This fall, they’ll be able to sample a variety of greens and root vegetables donated by Clagett.

We want to extend the brightest of thank yous to our wonderful friends at Clagett Farm, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and the Capital Area Food Bank. We are so excited to continue creating communities of health through fresh food together!

Partner Highlight: Capital Area Food Bank and The Coastal Companies Foundation

Posted on May 3, 2018 by -

Brighter Bites is so lucky to partner with amazing organizations across the country to create communities of health through fresh food everywhere we go. Two of these partners are teaming up with us in Washington, D.C. to bring Brighter Bites to Prince George’s County Public Schools. Learn all about our new friends in this partner spotlight!

Capital Area Food Bank

The Capital Area Food Bank (CAFB) is the largest organization in the Washington metro area working to solve hunger and its companion problems, like chronic undernutrition, heart disease, and obesity. The CAFB is also dedicated to reducing food waste, promoting wellness, utilizing technological solutions, and being a hunger advocate. When Brighter Bites moved to DC to address such issues, our partnership with the CAFB was only natural! Learn more about the CAFB’s efforts to take hunger off the map here.

The Coastal Companies Foundation

The Coastal Companies Foundation was founded with the mission to “nourish our community” through nutrition, education, and good corporate citizenship, which it accomplishes by building community partnerships, sponsoring innovative service projects, and investing in people. Composed of operating businesses Coastal Sunbelt Produce, East Coast Fresh, and Cold Chain Logistics, The Coastal Companies Foundation is the three businesses’ joint way of giving back to their community. We are so excited to bring Brighter Bites and The Coastal Companies Foundation’s missions together to jointly serve Prince George’s County!

The Packer Reports Brighter Bites Expansion to DC

Posted on May 3, 2018 by -

The Packer, a leading source for news, information, and analysis in the fresh fruit and vegetable industry, shared the details of Brighter Bites’ recent launch in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Read the full story here.

“Coastal Cos., Food Bank Partner with Brighter Bites in D.C.

By Daniel Vanderhorst
May 2, 2018

Capital Area Food Bank and The Coastal Cos. Foundation are partnering with nonprofit Brighter Bites to launch school-based programs giving families increased exposure to fresh produce in Prince George’s County, Md.

The new program aims to foster healthy eating habits by giving low-income children and their families fresh fruit and vegetables along with nutrition education materials.

“We know that food habits form early, and that those habits can impact health and well-being for life,” said Radha Muthiah, president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, Washington, D.C., in the release.

“We’re committed to working with our community’s schools to get good food — especially fruits and vegetables — into the hands of kids and families, which is why we’re excited by the Brighter Bites model and eager to see the impact that this partnership will have in Prince George’s County and beyond.”

The Brighter Bites programs will run in schools this spring and summer, distributing 80,000 pounds of produce and lots of nutrition education materials to 500 families and teachers at William Paca Elementary School, Cool Spring Elementary and several summer camps in Prince George’s County, according to the release.

Capital Area Food Bank and The Coastal Cos. Foundation will supply thousands of pounds of fresh produce, including warehousing and transportation services to support the initiative.

“When we learned that Brighter Bites was coming to the Washington, D.C., area, we knew right away it would be the ideal partnership for The Coastal Cos. Foundation,” Micah Brown, president of East Coast Fresh and executive director of The Coastal Cos. Foundation, said in the release. “Brighter Bites’ desire to provide kids and families with access to fresh, healthy food aligns perfectly with our Foundation’s mission to nourish our community.”

As part of the Brighter Bites program, parents and community volunteers pack bags of fresh produce items for families and teachers to take home free each week during three eight-week sessions. Each two-bag set has about 50 servings of eight to 12 different produce items, according to the release.

Prince George’s County is the sixth Brighter Bites program to launch after Houston, Dallas, Austin, New York City and southwest Florida.

The Coastal Cos. Foundation, established in 2012, coordinates the giving of The Coastal Cos. businesses: Coastal Sunbelt Produce, East Coast Fresh and Cold Chain Logistics.”