| More than $2 million in recent federal allocations is fueling The Cooperative Extension Program at North Carolina A&T’s efforts to help North Carolinians eat healthfully, thwart weight gain and make the most of their food budgets.
The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education (SNAP-Ed) is a USDA initiative that promotes good nutrition and exercise, and reduces and prevents obesity among limited-resource audiences. Once known as the Food Stamp Program that assisted participants based on income, the current version also provides educational outreach to eligible individuals and families.
Curricula that range from preschool to adult guide recipients on good food choices, exercise and ways to stretch monthly federal food benefits to the end of the month.
“SNAP-Ed aligns well with what our work and mission are in working with limited-
resource audiences on health, nutrition and wellness programs,” said Dr. Rosalind Dale, interim administrator of The Cooperative Extension Program. “This opportunity provides additional resources to carry out work we were already involved in.”
This is the second fiscal year Extension has received the SNAP-Ed grants. In just three months’ time, SNAP-Ed outreach served 1,470 participants in Alexander, Bladen, Brunswick, Hoke, Montgomery, Scotland and Stanly counties. Organizers anticipate programming in 38 North Carolina counties during the 2015-16 fiscal year.
4-H and Family and Consumer Science agents working in county Extension centers whose positions are funded through A&T are devoting 20–50 percent of their outreach efforts
to SNAP-Ed audiences. Most of those agents have attended special trainings on campus, including a session in a kitchen food lab in Benbow Hall to test recipes from one of the curricula.
The grants are also funding 11 new positions, including seven program assistants and the campus-based SNAP-Ed project coordinator. |
