To Be Well Read, You Must Be Well Fed

Are an increasing number of kids visiting after school or spending summer days in your library? Are you looking to bolster your afterschool and/or summer programming? Your library may be the nearest and most welcoming community center and/or trusted public space for your community’s youth. As a valuable community resource, you can nourish kids’ minds and bodies!

Across our state, more than one million low-income children eat healthy school lunches on an average school day; however, less than one-third of these students have access to summer nutrition programs. In many upstate communities, far fewer youth have access to summer meals. Making sure that all children get access to food in the summer is important to their health, wellbeing and academic success.

Increasing numbers of libraries are partnering with local anti-hunger organizations and school districts to raise awareness of summer meals. Many even provide summer meals alongside their programming.

In this webinar, you will learn ways to engage your community’s libraries in promoting and serving summer meals through child nutrition programs.

Hunger Solutions NYS Resources

  1. 2018-2019 Library Summer Meal Sites in NYS
  2. To Be Well Read You Must Be Well Fed flyer
  3. Turning on the Faucet eBulletin
  4. Summer Meals Button Graphics
  5. Summer Meals Sponsor Directory
  6. More information and a site locator mapper may be found at SummerMealsNY.org

Connecting Kids and Teens with Healthy Summer Meals: Libraries as Partners

Presenter slides can be viewed here (PDF).

 

Speakers:

Michelle Crawford
Michelle found Nutrition as part of her healthy lifestyle routine to improve her health and her families as well.  Fitness and Health have been a constant in her life. Practicing a healthy lifestyle became so important to every aspect in her life that she wanted to share her love for nutrition and its health benefits with others in the community.  Michelle has been working for 10 yrs. in Community Nutrition and is currently employed as Summer Food Service Program Specialist for the New York State Education Department. Michelle has her Bachelor’s degree in Nutrition Science and is RD eligible. She also has her certification in Hot Warrior Yoga with Jennilee Toner 2013.  I enjoy traveling and helping families to thrive and working with other health professionals to feed children healthy meals.
Ashley Pickett
Ashley Pickett is currently the children's librarian at the Roswell P. Flower Memorial Library in Watertown, NY and has been there since 2010. She received her B.S. in Psychology from Elmira College and her MSLIS from Syracuse University. Her favorite library jobs are weeding, storytime, and children's crafts - the messier, the better. Her favorite story to share with others is Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj. In fact, she shares it so much that she almost has it memorized! When she's not busy saving the world one silly story at a time, she's chasing her toddler and spending time with her family.
Krystina Dippel
Krystina has served as the Youth Services Director at Newark Public Library in Newark, NY since June 2012. She has hosted a free lunch program at her library for the past three summers, and has hosted after school snack programs at the library as well. Krystina is committed to providing excellent service to all members of her library's community.
Misha Marvel
Misha joined Hunger Solutions New York in 2003 and currently serves as a child nutrition program resource for organizations, agencies, and advocates to increase participation in the Summer Food Service Program, the Child and Adult Care Food Program, and SNAP. She has a B.A. in psychology from The College of William and Mary and a master's degree in social work from Arizona State University. Her college volunteer experience with Head Start preschoolers sparked her awareness of how children’s joy of learning and good nutrition go hand in hand. At Hunger Solutions New York, she is a field instructor with SUNY Albany master of social work candidate interns with a personal goal of encouraging more future social workers to become involved in anti-hunger advocacy.