District Heights Childhood Hunger

District Heights YSB – Healthy Heights meet the following targets by the end of the FY 19:

PM: Number of youth served

PM: Number of parents served

PM: Number of Nutrition Education Classes Offered

PM: Number/Percent of Parents and Youth participating  In Nutrition Education Classes  (Nuts and Cuts)

PM: Number/Percent of parents and youth who Participated in Community Garden

The Provider provided services to parents and youth in both Nutrition Education Classes and Community Garden to obtain knowledge and improve their food insecurities. During HF1, the Provider failed to serve any youth or parents. According to Provider, there a marketing and recruitment campaign was taken place half of the program year as classes started toward the end of January. However, there was a tremendous amount of increase in all performance measure going into the HF2. Due to providing program increase of classes from 1-5 that held college court and 5-day Spring Break workshop as well as an increase of an hour and a half long (Take Off Pounds Sensibly (TOPS)) classes. Although Provider met target percentage of parents and youth participating in nutrition education classes and community garden, participants were more interested in the nutrition education classes over the community garden classes as participants viewed community garden as “dirty work”. 

District Heights Youth Service Bureau Project Wellness builds direct relationships with local organizational experts currently engaged in the work of nutrition, health and wellness. These partnerships provide parents access to information and resources to address their family’s immediate food needs and enhances both children and parents’ ability to implement nutrition and fitness into their daily lives.

Project Wellness engages families in a two-generation, multi-language approach by providing on-going bilingual food resources and conducting quarterly nutrition and budgeting classes.

The DHYSB Healthy Heights Program will target/recruit 25 new youth from Prince George’s County schools in the following zip codes: 20743, 20746, 20747 and 20748. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, these zip codes have been identified as either food deserts or in close proximity to food deserts. These areas are also in or are adjacent to the low-income, high crime Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative (TNI) identified by the current County Executive. According to Prince George's County reports, these areas “face significant economic, health, public safety, and educational challenges.”