Tuesday's with Tammy

Today we had the opportunity to meet with Tammy Leonard the director of the River Valley Childcare Food Program. This program works with local daycare centers as well as "mom and pop" childcare providers throughout 6 counties in West Virginia. Their main goal is to promote the health of the children in these centers and homes and provide education and funding for nutritious meals and snacks throughout each day.

Early in the meeting Tammy showed how passionate she was about her work and her community. She painted a good picture of the challenges people in the area face and how they contribute to childhood obesity. Some of these challenges included:

• Lack of education and understanding importance of a nutritious diet
• Poverty (unable to purchase healthier, more expensive foods)
• Location
• Large distance to stores with fresh produce and healthier options
• Large distance to schools (contributes to decreased education)
• Convenience of unhealthy food (large number of fast food restaurants readily available)

This information provided important insight into the root causes of the issues we could expect to see throughout the rest of the week.

Some of our biggest takeaways after listening to what Tammy does is how important government funding to these kind of programs is because without them hundreds of kids and their families would go without healthy food leading to a myriad of issues. She is trying as hard as she can to end the cycle of unhealthy eating as a result of poverty and help kids throughout West Virginia. 

One of the programs Tammy works with in the city of Huntington is the Enterprise Daycare Center which we were able to visit this afternoon. Putting a face to the "children" Tammy talked about helping and seeing who was directly benefiting from the federal funding gave meaning to our cause. Half of our group was able to play with young toddlers while the other half worked with kids aged 2-5. It was really encouraging to see not only USDA guidelines being followed for snacks and lunch but the kids were also requesting seconds and thirds of healthier food. 

We came back to Central Christian empowered and ready to take on the rest of the week as we continue to learn more about childhood obesity in the area and learn ways to overcome it.