Clean water access for Californians is a large issue for many rural latino families. California has the largest Latino population in the U.S. and unfortunately many without access to uncontaminated drinking water. According to the Community Water Center, California’s San Joaquin Valley has the highest rates of contaminated drinking water as well as the greatest number of public water systems with Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) violations in the state. The good news is that Federal and State investments along with California-based organizations are working on water quality and quantity in the dry state. A new partnership focused on conserving and restoring Sierra-Cascade California Headwaters will work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and other partners to ...
Kentucky, Wisconsin, Mississippi, Texas and Alabama are among USDA's top states to receive 2015 Federal funding through the new initiative Local Food, Local Places.
Local Food, Local Places is a federal initiative providing direct technical support to help local food systems and grow local economy as well as help provide community kitchens, food hubs, enhance public spaces for people to walk or bike to farmers markets, and encourage gardens in schools.Communities work together in a holistic approach, with experts from all fields, including public health, environmental, agricultural, transportation, and regional economics. Harvesting the reports from 2014, the program brought in over 11 billion dollars and showed that local food is growing in popularity and sustainability. ...
Ensuring that children enter school at a healthy weight or maintain a healthy weight over the summer can be a challenge for Latino parents. Especially in states with large rural populations or in areas with poor transportation infrastructure. In Colorado (21% Latino), only 1 in 10 eligible children visit a summer lunch site for free summer lunch. Lunch Lizard is Colorado’s eighth mobile summer food program in attempts to increase the percentage of low-income children that receive free summer meals. When left to make do on their own during the summer, children go hungry or resort to quick, cheap and calorie-dense foods lacking in nutritional value; therefore, many children gain weight over the summer. Mobile food trucks provide access to free, nutritious summer lunches for ...
Hispanic children who participated in a unique weight-maintenance pilot intervention were more likely to adopt healthy lifestyles, resulting in healthier weights, than children who didn’t participate, according to a UT Health Science Center at San Antonio study in the June 2015 issue of the journal Childhood Obesity. The pilot study, which paved the way for a new $2.9 million grant to test the intervention on a larger scale through 2019, was implemented with parent-child pairs in a rural clinic in New Braunfels, Texas. Children who participated were Hispanic, ages 5-14, and obese/overweight. “Comprehensive behavioral programs have been shown to help these children improve their weight status. However, more efficient interventions that can be done in primary care clinics must ...
In an effort to curb sugary drink consumption and generate revenue for health promotion activities, law makers and health advocates in California are pushing for a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages. Introduced by State Assembly Member Richard Bloom and backed by the Latino Coalition for a Healthy California (LCHC), among others, the bill would place a 2-cent-per-ounce health impact excise fee on sugary drinks. The tax is expected to generate an estimated $3 billion a year. The revenue would be used to create the "Children's and Family Health Promotion Program" to prevent and treat obesity, diabetes, heart and dental disease. "Sugar sweetened beverages are causing Californians to become overweight and have led to an epidemic of diabetes," said Assembly Member Bloom. "The beverage ...
Latinos use digital media more than any other ethnic group, surveys show. Voto Latino, an organization that empowers Latino millennials to promote positive change, is challenging young Latinos to put their digital media expertise to work. The Voto Latino Innovators Challenge was created to get Latino millennials thinking about technology both as an innovative change agent and as a potential career. To be entered into the Challenge, projects must use a tech tool to address a need in the Latino community. In early March 2015, Voto Latino announced this year's winners who took tech-savvy creativity to new heights. Winning projects include: A program that uses technology to improve health for migrant farmworkers in rural Virginia
A mobile app that aims to help ...
Farm to School programs are great ways to introduce kids to fresh fruits and veggies at a young age. Advocacy groups across the country are supporting state and local bills that would designate resources from the legislative budget to ensure these programs start strong, stay strong and reach children in every neighborhood. In Colorado, Farm to School advocates were thrilled this week to learn that their Farm to School bill, HB15-1088: "Interagency Farm-to-School Grant Program," had passed out of the House Education Committee and will now advance to the House Appropriations Committee! A news update from Healthier Colorado, a health advocacy nonprofit, said that committee members were excited about the bill, and they cited the fact that it will simultaneously fight against childhood ...
Chicago, Illinois. Kyle, Texas. These are two very different settings: Big-city urban vs. small-town rural. Yet school leaders in both areas grew so alarmed by student obesity and physical inactivity, especially among Latino students, they pushed for policies to get kids moving during class—demonstrating that, no matter how big or small, Salud Heroes can make change. Simon Middle School principal Matt Pope helped launch innovative “brain breaks” and more activities at the 90% Latino school in Kyle. Read or watch exactly how Pope got it done. “The mission of Simon Middle School changed, and my mission as principal changed, because we have to change the lives of our students to live a healthy life where they have a healthy brain, a healthy body, and a healthy ...
The Mixing Bowl is a community commercial kitchen that has been helping small food businesses get going in New Mexico for the past ten years. To celebrate their decade of success, the Mixing Bowl is asking the New Mexico State legislature for $700,000 to fund development of a dozen other similar kitchens throughout the state, calling it the La Cocina initiative. If funded, the La Cocina Initiative will help a dozen existing rural New Mexico communities build out food entrepreneur programs based on the successful Mixing Bowl model in underutilized commercial kitchens like those in community center, schools, and churches. But these community kitchens aren't aimed at simply producing food---they want the food to be fresh and healthy. Delicious New Mexico helps with this ...
