Team Nutrition* Grants Awarded To Several Schools

During the 2007-2008 school year, several North Dakota schools will be implementing Team Nutrition grant projects to improve the school nutrition environment. Over $30,000 of Team Nutrition funds were awarded to 37 schools that applied for one of the three Team Nutrition grant openings this fall.

The 15 schools that received a Team Nutrition Best Practices mini-grant have established nutrition action teams to try a new initiative such as; increased nutrition education, teacher in-services, a school garden, breakfast in the classroom, school walking groups, or recess before lunch. Some of the applicants addressed other areas that need improvements.

The Team Nutrition grants for educating students on the Dietary Guidelines, MyPyramid, and MyPyramid for Kids are being implemented in 17 schools. The Family and Consumer Science instructors are the project directors or coordinators that instruct the students and/or oversee older students teaching younger students about healthy eating.

Five of the 11 Coordinated School Health demonstration site schools applied for Team Nutrition grant funds to conduct various nutrition and nutrition education projects. These include utilizing health education standards, development of school gardening lesson plans, and efforts to increase student fruit and vegetable consumption.

*Team Nutrition is an initiative of the USDA Food and Nutrition Service to support the Child Nutrition Programs through training and technical assistance for foodservice, nutrition education for children and their caregivers, and school and community support for healthy eating and physical activity.