As a FoodCorps AmeriCorps service member, I got pretty creative in the name of connecting kids to healthy food in school. I donned vegetable costumes in the cafeteria, danced around in the garden in front of a live audience of 30 children, and hauled five-gallon buckets of compost through the hallways, to name a few. One of the most memorable moments was when I dressed up as the Very Hungry Caterpillar and read the popular book by Eric Carle to my second grade students. Through cute illustrations that teach counting skills, the book  ultimately imparts a lesson about how food helps us grow. For the lesson, I was lucky enough to find The Very Hungry Caterpillar at my school’s library in Vernon, CT, but many service members around the nation are not so lucky.

FoodCorps service members are placed in high-need schools that are often strapped for resources as well as personnel. Here in Connecticut, several of our FoodCorps schools do not have a library, or even a space for books at all. Those that do have libraries have lost funding for librarians, meaning that in-class reading time is even more important. This year, one of our national funding partners, C&S Wholesale Grocers, made possible the donation of books for all 225+ FoodCorps AmeriCorps service members around the country. Sourced through FirstBook.org, the brand-new, high-quality books meant that hundreds of kids were able to access books while learning about food in the garden or classroom. At Parkville School in Hartford, where over 90% of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and there is no space for a library, teachers often purchase books for their classrooms with their own money.  FoodCorps service member Allie was able to choose 15 books to use in her lessons—and those books are now part of the classrooms at Parkville.

Books are an essential resource for all classrooms and are especially important for the FoodCorps lessons our service members deliver to elementary-aged students. Starting a lesson with a relevant book connects to English Language Arts standards. Stories can also teach us about more than just the English & Language Arts — they can also teach us how to navigate the world around us.

When service member Alyssa read Tops & Bottoms by Janet Stevens to her Pre-K students in Hartford, they were transported all the way to a farm (where animals talked!). The book shows students which vegetables grow above and below the ground, while teaching an underlying lesson about kindness and work ethic—something that would’ve been difficult for Alyssa to teach without the book as a guide.  

At the same time that some books take us to another world, other books connect us to characters that seem similar to ourselves or communities that seem similar to our own. After receiving Sylvia’s Spinach by Katherine Pryor, a book about a child that originally doesn’t like spinach but learns to love it after giving it a second chance, one of Katie Alderman’s students came up to her a week later and said that she related to Sylvia, because after the lesson, she “tried pineapple again and liked it!”

Katie Alderman serves in New Haven, where she co-teaches a bilingual Spanish/English class of kindergarteners once a week. Thanks to C&S Wholesale Grocers, Katie was able to order many books in both English and Spanish, making these stories accessible to her whole class.

Books can take us to new lands, bring us home, and create shared stories that connect people across generations and locations. Using these stories helps FoodCorps service members bring their lessons to life.

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WHOLESALE GROCERY SUPPLIER TO SUPPORT HUNGER ALLEVIATION EFFORTS IN SCHOOLS

Keene, NH—In honor of National Hunger Action month, FoodCorps and C&S Wholesale Grocers are announcing the winner and runners-up of an essay contest aimed at raising awareness of hunger in schools. The Victory Growers Award contest, open to all 225 FoodCorps service members, prompted writers to share stories of childhood hunger at their service sites and persuade readers to take action. C&S is proud to award the winner’s school with $5,000 toward food education programs. The schools of the two runners-up will each receive $1,000.

Lauren Burke’s winning essay tells the story of hunger on a Hopi reservation in Arizona, where she serves as a FoodCorps service member. Child hunger and food insecurity rates are up to twice as high on Native American reservations than they are in the rest of the country, and Burke argues for a culturally inclusive approach to nutrition education as a solution to hunger. “[Nutrition education programs] must strive not only to serve native communities, but to allow those communities to construct the programming of the future,” writes Burke.

Two runners-up were named. Mary Grace Stoneking, serving in Van Buren, AR, wrote an essay describing the impact of chronic hunger on a child’s education and encourages readers to invest in food education programs. Carly Wyman, serving in Pahoa, HI, submitted an essay discussing the unique challenges of Hawai’i’s predominantly imported food system and argues that hands-on food education is an effective way to address childhood hunger. The essays and photos of the award winners are available at foodcorps.org/stories.

FoodCorps is a national service program that connects kids to healthy food in schools. Its team of AmeriCorps leaders serves in high-need schools to make sure students learn what healthy food is, fall in love with it, and eat it every day. C&S Wholesale Grocers has supported FoodCorps since 2014. In addition to the Victory Grower’s Award, C&S connects FoodCorps to education resources and has partnered with FoodCorps to grow knowledge of healthy food for students by placing service members near its warehouse locations.

About C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc.

C&S Wholesale Grocers, Inc., based in Keene, NH, is the largest wholesale grocery supply company in the U.S. and the industry leader in supply chain innovation. Founded in 1918 as a supplier to independent grocery stores, C&S now services customers of all sizes, supplying more than 14,000 independent supermarkets, chain stores, military bases, and institutions with over 140,000 different products. To learn more, please visit www.cswg.com.

C&S community involvement programs support initiatives to fight hunger and to promote the health and enrichment of communities that are homes to the company’s employees and facilities. To learn more, please visit http://community.cswg.com.

About FoodCorps

FoodCorps connects kids to healthy food in school. Its team of AmeriCorps leaders serves in high-need schools to make sure students learn what healthy food is, fall in love with it, and eat it every day. Its corps members team up with educators to deliver lead hands-on lessons in growing, cooking, and tasting healthy food; partner with farmers and food service workers to create nutritious and delicious school meals; and collaborate with communities to build a schoolwide culture of health. Building on this foundation of direct impact, FoodCorps pursues systemic strategies that will benefit all of our nation’s 100,000 schools. To learn more, please visit foodcorps.org.

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Year after year, these six books come in with rave reviews from corps members and students alike!  We’ve included some of their testimonies below to help you see how these books can inspire students to be brave tasters (and confident cooks and growers):

1. Tops and Bottoms

Tops & Bottoms celebrates the trickster tradition of using one’s wits to overcome hardship, while also teaching valuable lessons about plant bottoms and plant tops. Service members recommend pairing a reading of the book with a lesson showing the children plants that are tops (think: greens) and bottoms (think: root vegetables).

2. Stone Soup

This classic picture book from 1947 is about a group of hungry strangers who trick a village into making soup for them. Our service members have been able to draw on the book to celebrate students’ own school garden harvests. At Columbia Falls Junior High in Montana, the whole school community got involved. FoodCorps service member testimonial:

“I had 6 classes spend the semester building up to a Stone Soup celebration — they read the folktale, planted seeds, harvested veggies, chopped veggies with their bear claws and made their own ‘Stone Soup’ at the end.”

3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar

A picture book about a caterpillar who eats its way through a wide variety of foodstuffs before pupating and becoming as a butterfly. FoodCorps service member testimonial:

“There is a special magical force about this book that every child and adult loves. Perhaps it the beauty in learning about how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly, or the silliness of a caterpillar eating through so much human food. To teach this lesson I asked the students if they could help the caterpillar eat through all the fruits I brought in. Every time we saw the caterpillar eating through a fruit, the students’ hands shot up in the air ready to help him. We went through each fruit: apples, pears, plums, strawberries, and oranges. I was very proud of the students who were not just sucking the juice from the oranges but actually eating the whole thing pulp and all!”

4. I Will Never Not Eat a Tomato

This book tracks a very picky eater who succumbs to the very kind of healthy food marketing our corps members employ (i,e,: make it fun!). FoodCorps service member testimonial:

“In the book the little girl Lola calls foods by different names to make them more appealing to eat. She changes tomatoes to ‘moonsquirters’ which make the students giggle every time you say it. I offer some moonsquirters for them to try and it’s a hit! One boy Jacob was trying a tomato for the first time and exclaimed ‘I didn’t know I liked tomatoes but now I’m going to tell my mom to buy some!’”

5. The Carrot Seed

A classic picture book—starring Harold from “Harold and the Purple Crayon”— from 1945 that follows a boy’s deep devotion to and care for his carrot seed. FoodCorps service member testimonial:

“We read the book and checked on our own carrot seeds. Then we tasted raw carrots and cooked carrots with cinnamon, which almost everyone loved.”

6. Seedfolks

A short novel in which each character describes the transformation of an empty lot into a vibrant community garden. FoodCorps service member testimonial:

“I wanted to bring a diverse group of students together over something we all share, the need to eat real food. ‘SeedFolks’ by Paul Fleischman provided our garden club with the chance to see ourselves reflected. We started out reading our book about a group of people who were all so different and we ended up with our knees in the dirt planting our first seeds of the year, together.”

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