Winter Farm Share Returns to Stevenson Family Health Center

After a successful run in 2018, the Winter Farm Share returns to the Stevenson Family Health Center in 2019. Bronx Health REACH has once again partnered with Corbin Hill Food Project to host a Winter Farm Share where employees, patients and community residents can purchase 6-8  seasonal vegetables and one fruit on the first and third Tuesday of every month (from 3:00 to 6:00 p.m.) for only $10. Customers can pay in person with cash, credit card, debit card, EBT, SNAP and Health Bucks and can also purchase online by visiting the Corbin Hill website.

Nutrition Education Advocates Educate City Council Members on the Importance of Nutrition Education in Public Schools

This post is written by Moria Byrne-Zaaloff, MPH, Program Coordinator for Creating Healthy Schools and Communities at Bronx Health REACH. 


The energy in the room was palpable as I entered the New York City Council hearing room surrounded by advocates, councilmember staff and a flock of media corralled in the corner. I was there to testify on behalf of Bronx Health REACH, alongside other advocates, teachers, parents and students from across the five boroughs on the importance of nutrition education in schools. The hearing was in response to the Nutrition and Education Reporting bill sponsored by Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer and City Council Member Mark Treyger, Chair of the Education Committee and supported by many in the nutrition education community.

Currently, information on nutrition education programming in schools isn’t publically available. Bronx Health REACH and other organizations viewed this hearing as an opportunity to highlight the importance of nutrition education and the barriers to it in New York City public schools. The Bill would require the New York City Department of Education to submit an annual report of food and nutrition education classes, conducted by school teachers/staff or external partners in each New York City public school to the New York City Council. The report would account for the frequency and total minutes of instruction, number of students taught, total instruction time by teachers and outside organizations, and number of school teachers/staff who received training in each NYC public school.

Minutes before the hearing began advocates and the co-sponsors of the proposed legislation, Councilman Mark Treyger and Manhattan Borough President Gayle Brewer, gathered for a rally on the steps of City Hall declaring food and nutrition education essential to student health. Councilman Treyger spoke of the gaps in our current education system including a lack of professional development training. He cited the commissioner’s report from 2015 which showed that “over 90 percent of our educators teaching health and wellness are not even licensed to teach health.”

While this data may be remarkably different after the rollout of HealthEd Works, a promising pilot program of the DOE to bring nutrition education programming, professional development training, and resources to 500 public schools in the next few years, parents deserve to know whether their children are currently receiving the same educational programming as resource-rich public schools.

At the hearing, Councilmembers Mark Levine, Brad Lander, Andy King, and Debi Rose asked questions and spoke in support of the proposed legislation, but it was the voices of the students, teachers and advocates that were the most powerful. Maria Mohammed, a Bronx high school graduate, spoke about how students are not being fully educated about the harms of processed food. “What are we going to tell them 5 years from now? We are sorry that we failed you and need to do better for the next generation.” Pam Cook of Teacher’s College spoke on behalf of Meredith Hill, Assistant Principal of Columbia Secondary School for Math, Science and Engineering who wrote, “When we educate students about what they put in their bodies, they gain power--the power to be educated consumers making healthy choices.”

As a public health professional working in NYC for the past couple of years, I spoke about the constant frustration and burn-out I have seen in the teachers working at our Bronx partner schools who face the challenges of not having enough time to fit nutrition education in the schedule for all students, vague guidelines from the NYC DOE regarding how many hours or lessons per semester should be dedicated to nutrition education in elementary and middle school, and insufficient professional development training in nutrition education. Working in neighborhoods with limited funding, capacity, training and resources leaves many of the energetic and self-motivated teachers ill-equipped to meet students’ needs for nutrition education.

Seeing the level of enthusiasm and commitment in the hearing room to ensure that all NYC public school children receive adequate nutrition education to equip them to make healthy food choices, reawakened the hope of a better future for NYC schoolchildren. On a separate note, seeing the civic process at work  made me feel grateful to live in a country where your voice can be heard.

NYC Department of Education Reports Increase in Physical Education

In December Bronx Health REACH and our PE4All Coalition partners submitted testimony to the New York City Council Education Committee to extend programming for PEWorks, scheduled to end in June, and to also request expanding the Local Law 102, NYC Department of Education Reporting of Physical Education in NYC schools. PEWorks, a successful program developed to revitalize physical education has made great strides in improving physical education (PE) in NYC schools. The Program has increased the number of elementary schools with trained PE teachers to 85 percent, has trained 6,200 classroom teachers in physical activity programming, and has funded wellness programming in 207 schools and provided facility upgrades to 40 schools.

The NYC Department of Education reported a significant increase in the percentage of students receiving the required amount of physical education in the 2017-2018 report of the state of physical education in NYC. We reviewed the annual reports from the past two years and found a five percent increase in students receiving PE in high school and a four percent increase for middle schools. We believe the improvements are a result of the PEWorks program, a DOE initiative to revitalize physical education in public schools. (Click here for PEWorks Year 3 Report.) Overall, the 2017-2018 Annual PE Report of the NYC Department of Education determined that 60 percent of all Bronx public school students are receiving the required amount of PE per week.

This is great news! But we all know that more progress is needed for true systemic change in the Bronx. Thirty-one percent of Bronx public schools lack a certified full-time physical education teacher, 18 percent of Bronx public schools receive less than the required amount of physical education, 46 percent of Bronx public schools lack space to conduct physical education classes indoors and only ten out of 1299 schools have a designated space for adaptive physical education.

If this reporting bill gets passed, there will be additional funding for PEWorks  as well as expanded reporting on topics such as: public school compliance with PE curricula, professional development for certified physical education teachers, adaptive physical education provided to students with disabilities, and after school athletic funding. Although the committee is no longer accepting testimonies, we encourage you to reach out to your local councilmembers and ask them to support this bill.

Planting Daffodils Builds a Bridge Between Two Schools

This post is written by Adriana Perez, our FoodCorps member who is partnered with the Sheridan Academy for Young Leaders (PS457)/the Family School (PS443). Adriana will dedicate a year of service to engaging students and teachers in creating a school wide culture of health through experiential learning in their school garden, cafeteria and classroom.

When I first arrived at the Sheridan Academy for Young Leaders (PS457)/the Family School (PS443), I immediately saw many possibilities for healthy eating and wellness programming. Instead of diving in head first, I took the time to get to know the students, colleagues and the surrounding community to better understand their wants and needs.

Though there is a healthy rivalry between the schools, the schools do have some common goals: enhancing their students’ learning experiences through nutrition education and providing access to healthier foods, especially through garden programming. Unfortunately, both gardens were destroyed last year by scaffolding erected for building repairs. This year, the schools agreed to come together to rebuild their individual gardens with a new component — a community’ garden, grown and maintained by both schools.

Since most of the garden redevelopment won’t happen until the spring, I decided to "bridge the divide" between the schools with a smaller initiative — the Daffodil Project. This project, coordinated by New Yorkers for Parks and the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, provides daffodil bulbs to schools and community groups throughout NYC in an effort to beautify public spaces. After speaking with Principals Rowena Penn and Lisette Febus and Assistant Principals Nicole Smith and Jose Gonzalez, we decided to plant the bulbs along the green space connecting the entrances to the two schools. This is the ideal spot for the building’s first joint garden project as it’s the waiting area for parents collecting their children at the end of the school day.

With the support of Dean Tonya and Parent Coordinators, Millicent Matos and Carlos Cedano, we recruited nearly 60 parents and children to participate in the "Dig & Daffodil" day held on November 1. It was exciting to see parents and students from both schools crouched side by side planting bulbs in the school yard on a surprisingly warm afternoon. The students and I also recruited parents and children leaving school that day to stop and plant a bulb on their way out the door.  Altogether, we planted 500 bulbs!

“This is just like class,” said Kimberly, a student in my class as she enthusiastically showed her siblings how to properly plant the bulbs. When the daffodils bloom in the spring they will not only provide the yard with much needed color to the drab concrete landscape, but it will also be a physical link between the two schools. What I affectionately call the “daffodil bridge” will tell the story of the seeds we sowed early in the school year and the renewed hope their early spring blossoms will bring.