MEETING: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

7pm -Orchard View Community Education Offices. In attendance:

Doug Wood, Spencer Norman, Dr. Doris Rucks, Tony Gale-Butto, Kellie Gale-Butto, Alecia Hopper, Dawn Auchs, David O'Neal, Chris Bedford.

AGENDA: Alecia Hopper explained the SPLASH Program -- a program from the USDA (funded thru 2012) -- to help schools with 50% or more students receiving free lunches run classroom and community outreach education about good nutrition. SPLASH gives each school building that qualifies $5/pupil to do school wide and community outreach education programs on nutrition. In addition, individual teachers in participating schools can receive $250/classroom to do nutrition education. In a typical Muskegon County elementary school, the per pupil total runs from about $1,200 to $2,500 per school, depending on enrollment.

The following schools in Muskegon County participate in the program. 

Holton:
    Holton Elementary
    Holton High School
Muskegon Public:
    Bluffton Elementary
    Marquette Elementary
    McLaughlin Elementary
    Moon Elementary
    Nelson Elementary
    Nims Elementary
    Oakview Elementary
    Bunker Middle School
Oakridge:
    Oakridge Lower Elementary
    Oakridge Upper Elementary
    Oakridge Middle School
Orchard View:
    Orchard View Early Elementary
Montague:
    RRO Elementary
    NBC Middle School
Reeths-Puffer
    McMillian Elementary

Alecia said some teachers had used their money to serve yogurt parfaits as a snack in their classroom. Schools generally contracted with MSU Extension to present already established "good eating" programs.

In addition, she invited us to attend a student play about "eating disorderly" entitled FULL MOUTH/EMPTY MOUTH that will be presented at the Frauenthal Theatre at 10am on November 10, 2009. The presentation is a collaboration with the Lakeshore Eating Coalition and the Muskegon Health Project. If you want to attend, you must call Alicia at 231-767-7340. 

Alecia said she was open to inclusion of information about local foods and seasonal eating into the SPLASH Program.  If we want to introduce some of our concepts into the SPLASH Program, we must present our proposal to Alecia who will get approval for inclusion from a Lansing based committee in the Dept. of Community Health. 

There are two general opportunities for our outreach: classroom and in the school cafeteria AND into the community. SPLASH is unique in that it has a community outreach component. Our proposal doesn't have to be within a regular school day. It could happen on weekends and at school sporting events. Some parents are already involved in helping do SPLASH events in classrooms. 

SPLASH offers the Muskegon Farm-to-School Project a path into the schools that will allow us to collaborate with teachers and administrators already concerned about good nutrition.

Chris Bedford