Partners: FoodCorps, Chicory Market, United Way of Oxford & Lafayette County, the University of Mississippi, L.O.U. Reads Coalition, Boys & Girls Club, Leap Frog, local fitness instructors, artists and farmers 

Students impacted: 4,312
Volunteers: Average of 121 per year
Partnership duration: 5 years 

Good Food for Oxford Schools (GFOS) is a program of Oxford School District Child Nutrition Department. Working as a community, we connect kids from seed to harvest to cafeteria menu to create district-wide healthy changes. We provide nutrition education, working to improve school lunches and increase student participation with the vision of creating a school-wide culture of health focused on healthy eating habits, physical fitness and overall wellness. Each school has its own health council and policies, with many policies including GFOS programs and staff to achieve help all schools succeed.  

Activities:

• Program provided 172 classroom lessons and 43 after school lessons, facilitated 6 purchases from local farms, held 9 taste tests in school cafeterias

• Reading intervention and enrichment activities

• Carrot Camp focusing on fitness, art and animals

• Martin Luther King Jr Community Breakfast involving around 200 community neighbors 

Impacts:

• 46.4% of parents surveyed said their children share what they learn about healthy foods in school; 35.5% stated that GFOS increases number of times their child(ren) eat in cafeteria.

• 67.7% of parents had eaten lunch with their student in the cafeteria, 30.5% had worked in a school garden, 23.2% had participated in a cafeteria tasting activity

• FoodCorps service members spent and average of 202 hours per week in classroom and facilitated 144 volunteers who donated 241 hours to program