Guest blog: Funding available for food skills education

Duke Storen is the Senior Director for Partner Impact and Advocacy at Share Our Strength, whose No Kid Hungry campaign is ending child hunger in America by ensuring all children get the healthy food they need, every day.

Families on a tight budget report that the cost of healthy groceries is their biggest barrier to making healthy meals at home. But we know that with the right skills, shopping for and preparing healthy food doesn’t have to break the bank.

As part of Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign, Cooking Matters is a free program that helps families shop for and cook healthy meals on a budget. Walmart, the national sponsor for Cooking Matters, makes this program possible.

Cooking Matters at the Store is a 1.5-hour grocery store tour in which participants learn four key food skills:

• Reading food labels
• Comparing unit prices
• Finding whole grains
• Identifying three ways to purchase produce

If you are interested in learning more about how Cooking Matters at the Store is making a difference in the lives of families in your community, visit www.cookingmatters.org/atthestore for an overview of the program.  It’s simple—a tour leader completes an online training, orders tour materials, recruits participants, and forms partnerships with grocery stores to host the tour.

In turn, Share Our Strength provides interactive online training, participant booklets with tips and recipes, reusable grocery bags for participants, tour leader planning guides, template communications materials, and technical support.

Together with Share Our Strength, you and your organization can provide turn-key food skills education to the community you serve.

And now, there is funding available to help these efforts succeed. Organizations interested in providing Cooking Matters at the Store tours may apply for a grant to help support their efforts.  Visit www.cookingmatters.org/grants for more information, or register for an informational webinar to be held on February 17 at 2 p.m. EST.

The minimum grant amount you may request is $2,500 to reach 250 participants, and there is no maximum grant amount for which you may apply. Grant amounts are determined based on the number of participants you expect to reach, at a level of up to $10/participant. So, for example, if you plan to reach a total of 300 participants (through multiple tours), you may apply for a grant of up to $3,000.

If your organization is interested in leading Cooking Matters at the Store tours in your community, and would like to apply for a grant to support your work, please review the information below to ensure you qualify as a candidate. Click here to start the application process.

You must use the following access code to enter the application: NATLRFP2015