Low income students from Capitol Heights Academy in Oak Park carried home bags of fresh fruits and vegetables following a holiday food drive by the California Food Literacy Center.
The Food Literacy Center is working to improve attitudes and behaviors around healthy eating through community outreach and educational initiatives.
The center works with kindergarten-through-fifth grade students, teaching the kids how to read nutrition labels, make healthy meals and explore new foods.
In an effort to provide students with fruits and vegetables over winter break, the center collected around 3,000 pieces of produce in the food drive.
Local residents, Soil Born Farms and Feeding Crane Farms donated in the food drive, which was held outside Nugget Market in West Sacramento.
Officials from the California Food Literacy Center, which was established last year, said prior to beginning its food literacy program, 82 percent of kindergarten and first grade students at Capitol Heights Academy said healthy snacks did not taste good.
A month into the center's food literacy program, the same question had 92 percent of students saying the opposite.
"We are so grateful to this community for stepping up to give these kids a healthy holiday, and we hope everyone will help us sustain these kids throughout 2013 by making a donation to our online campaign," said Amber Stott, executive director, California Food Literacy Center, in a press release.
To make a donation to California Food Literacy Center for its 2013 programs, visit www.californiafoodliteracy.org.
PHOTO CAPTION: Payam Fardanesh of Roseville drops off several bags of produce to Amber Stott for California Food Literacy Center's Holiday Fruits and Veggies Drive for the low-income children in their program. (Photo courtesy of the California Food Literacy Center.)
Loretta Kalb started her reporting career at The Sacramento Union, moved to KOVR-13 as a television reporter, editor and producer, headed to The Associated Press in San Francisco and eventually returned to Sacramento and joined The Sacramento Bee. Throughout her career, she has covered the state Legislature, courts, local government and, now, education. She is a Chico native and an Elk Grove resident.
Diana Lambert began her journalism career as a proofreader at the Lodi News-Sentinel. She is now a senior writer at The Sacramento Bee covering K-12 education and California State University, Sacramento. Previously she was The Bee’s Elk Grove bureau chief. Lambert was raised in a military family and lived at bases around the globe. She attended four high schools, graduating from Tokay High in Lodi and then Sacramento State University. She lives in Elk Grove.
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