Shapiro runner-up for FoodCorps Victory Growers Award

FoodCorps AmeriCorps Service Member Elayna Shapiro was selected as a runner-up for the 2019 FoodCorps Victory Growers Award “for a compelling account of hunger and food insecurity,” winning a $1,000 prize for her service site, the Polson School District in Polson.

The award, sponsored by C&S Wholesale Grocers, highlights that many children struggle with hunger and food insecurity, and that the food they receive at school is the most important meal they will get all day.

Here is Shapiro’s essay:

“I went through the checklist in my head one more time, just to make sure I remembered everything. Ingredients for the dressing, check. Salad greens, check. Carrots, raisins, beets, check. As I unloaded my car, I hurried into Mrs. Smith’s classroom, excited to start my lesson.

“Good afternoon, everyone!” I began. “Good afternoon, Miss Elayna!” they replied.

As the lesson began, I was excited to prepare our snack. I had planned a lesson around beets, our Harvest of the Month vegetable. We learned about the basic anatomy and function of a heart, and then prepared a “heart-healthy” beet salad.

The salad was designed to involve every student in making a basic balsamic dressing with salad greens, golden raisins, shredded carrots, and beets.

After everyone tried the salad, I passed out the recipe.

I asked my students how they liked it, and if they would eat it again. One student said, “This was delicious!” Another student said, “I would make it and add a different dressing.”

As I was cleaning up, I noticed one of my students didn’t have a recipe. I handed him one and he said, “No thanks, I won’t be able to make this at home, we don’t have enough money.”

I felt myself tighten up inside. I handed him the recipe anyways and said, “I like to make sure everyone has a recipe, just to share what you learned today.”

When I left the classroom, I felt his words echo in my head.

As a service member, I strive to make my lessons accessible to all my students, but there are always limitations.

Currently, I am serving in rural Montana in the Polson School District. While serving here, I have seen the challenges my students deal with every day. When I design my lessons, I encourage my students to try new foods and learn how food can impact their health. I strive to provide recipes easily replicable at home. However, I know many families are limited financially.

Therefore, I source my ingredients from stores in town and design recipes with versatile ingredients.

However, I know I can continue to improve my lessons.

For many of my students, hunger and food insecurity are common experiences, and school may be the only place where they are guaranteed a meal.

Many students take advantage of the breakfast program, which is a reliable way to ensure they start off their day focused and fed. However, I have seen students forced to eat quickly or not have enough time to finish their meal. It is situations like these that remind me of the importance of a nutritious and accessible school meal program. To fully address hunger in schools, we need resources all students can utilize.

I am lucky to work in a community that has many great programs already in effect.

We have the Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Program that provides snacks three times a week. During the summer months, there is a meal program open to all kids. We also have a well-stocked pantry that donates food to our meal programs and is a popular resource in the community.

As I transition into my second year of service, I hope to build up the current programs, such as the breakfast program. Breakfast is such an important meal for kids. At the beginning of the day, they need nutritious food to fuel their bodies and minds. This is essential for their well-being and success in school.

Implementing programs such as Breakfast After the Bell could be one way to improve the school meal program.

When I first learned about FoodCorps, I was drawn to the idea of using food as an educational tool.

I hope to use my time with FoodCorps to increase access to food by strengthening the programs in the Polson School District.

Our breakfast and lunch programs provide a great opportunity to educate our students about nutrition and health.

I am grateful to work with a team that is dedicated to continually improving our response to hunger in our community, and I look forward to seeing what we can accomplish in the next year.”

C&S Wholesale Grocers, the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S., joined FoodCorps, a national nonprofit that connects kids to healthy food in schools, to commemorate National Hunger Action Month by announcing the winner and runners-up of the sixth annual Victory Growers essay contest. The essay contest seeks to raise awareness of hunger in schools and communities across the country. All FoodCorps AmeriCorps service members were invited to submit an essay on the theme of hunger and food insecurity.

The winner of this year’s essay contest is Casey Haggerty, a FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member who served in Petoskey, Michigan during the 2018-2019 academic year and is serving there for a second year. Shannon Newerth was another runner-up. She served in Van Buren, Arkansas.

Haggerty’s winning essay challenges readers to rethink the implications of a beloved childhood tradition: snow days. When her schools experienced a staggering 11 snow days in one year, she realized many of her students spent 11 extra days hungry. “For every snow day,” she writes, “any residual, childhood excitement I felt at the prospect of a day off was tempered by a twisting feeling in my gut for the kids who would not get a decent meal that day.”

Newerth explores the racial and socioeconomic discrimination that manifests as food insecurity for many of her students. As a service member, she writes, “I am given the unique opportunity to meet students in the classroom to unpack and address hunger in a way that empowers them to make positive choices with food they have access to.”

FoodCorps is a national service program that teaches children about healthy eating through three main areas of service: hands-on learning, healthy school meals, and a schoolwide culture of health. With 250 AmeriCorps leaders serving in over 300 schools in communities across the continental United States and Hawaii, FoodCorps service members partner with schools to create nourishing environments for all students.

Since 2014, C&S Wholesale Grocers has partnered with FoodCorps to support its hunger prevention and food access work with schools in under-resourced communities.

For more information, visit www.foodcorps.org or follow @foodcorps on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.