Food Corps

FoodCorps is a nationwide team of AmeriCorps leaders who connect kids to real food and help them grow up healthy.

When we first brought FoodCorps to Charlotte, the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Food Policy Council partnered with Friendship Gardens to host two FoodCorps service members. Service members started working with students at three different CMS schools: Barringer Academic Center (k-5), Shamrock Gardens Elementary (prek-5), and Garinger High School (9-12).  

Now, CMFPC is the exclusive host site for FoodCorps in Charlotte but service members continue to work closely with staff and volunteers at Friendship Gardens, Friendship Trays, Pop Up Produce, Mecklenburg County Health Department, and 100 Gardens. FoodCorps would not be such a success in CMS if it weren’t for our partner and community support. 

Our service members:

* Teach hands-on lessons about food and nutrition
* Build and tend school gardens and teach cooking lessons so kids can taste the fresh food they’ve grown
* Change what’s on children’s lunch trays, giving them healthy food from local farms.

One in four U.S. children struggle with hunger, while one in three is obese or overweight. Yet the root cause is the same: lack of access to healthy food.

Schools are poised to be the front lines in our nation’s response to childhood obesity: 32 million children eat school food – the source of half their calories – 180 days of the year. What we feed our children, and what we teach them about food in school shapes how they learn, how they grow and how long they will live.

Give children nutrition education in the classroom, hands-on learning through school gardens, and nourishing food in the cafeteria, and a lifetime of healthy eating can take root. 

To Follow The FoodCorps North Carolina Blog and read about what service members are doing around the state of NC, click on this link: http://northcarolina.blog.foodcorps.org/ or Follow them on Facebook!https://www.facebook.com/ncfoodcorps 

Merry Oaks International Academy