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Our Mission
Our mission is to inspire kids to eat their vegetables. We teach
children in low-income elementary schools cooking, nutrition,
gardening, and active play to improve our health, environment,
and economy.
Why Food Literacy is Needed
In Sacramento, 40% of children suffer from childhood obesity or
are overweight. This directly increases their risk for Type 2
diabetes. These diet-related diseases are preventable if we eat
our vegetables. Yet only 4% of kids are eating the recommended
amount of fruits and veggies.
We work in low-income schools where students are at highest risk
for diet-related diseases. Most of them are food and nutrition
insecure.
How We Help Kids
We serve Title 1 schools in the Sacramento City Unified School
District, focusing on South Sacramento. We inspire kids to eat
their vegetables through hands-on cooking and nutrition classes.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we also offer free online
learning resources, and distribute take-home veggie recipe
kits to food and nutrition insecure students and their
families We are bringing joy and a trauma-informed food
literacy teaching approach to promote resilience, giving our kids
a healthier future!
Food Literacy Education
We provide weekly 45-minute food literacy classes delivered over
14 weeks in nine low-income elementary schools. In our
classrooms, students learn fruit and vegetable appreciation, how
to read a recipe, cooking skills – and they have fun. We are
unique in that we use positive reinforcement, getting kids
excited about fruits and vegetables through culturally
appropriate recipes, and hands-on activities.
After receiving food literacy education
- 96% of kids say healthy snacks taste good (attitude change)
- 96% know how to read an easy recipe (knowledge)
- 85% of students fearlessly tasted a new fruit or vegetable
each week through our Produce of the Day tasting (behavior)
We are changing kids’ attitude, knowledge and behavior toward
healthy eating.
Food Literacy Center is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
Donations to Food Literacy Center are tax deductible to the
extent allowed by law. Federal tax ID #45-3973268.
Food Literacy Academy
Our most innovative, scalable program is the Food Literacy
Academy. We created the academy, which trains community members
as food literacy instructors (we call them Food Geniuses) and
allows us to expand our curriculum across the region and
eventually the state. When we started this program, we were
reaching 120 kids per week. After training our first 20
instructors, we reached 2,400 in one summer! Community members
are asked to apply to the program. Applications are screened and
students are selected for the intensive 28-hour training on
topics of nutrition, food systems, food safety and specifically
how to implement Food Literacy Center’s curriculum, which is
based on positive reinforcement and having fun to inspire change.
Upon completion of the course, students are tested to become
certified Food Geniuses. In order to maintain their
certification, trainees are asked to provide volunteer service by
teaching food literacy classes. We now have 84 Food Geniuses
helping in nine schools and programs in 28 libraries across
Sacramento, Yolo and Placer Counties.
Food Literacy Center is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization.
Donations to Food Literacy Center are tax deductible to the
extent allowed by law. Federal tax ID #45-3973268.
